$95M of Shorts Liquidated as Bitcoin, Ether Rise 8%

More than $95 million worth of short positions were liquidated in the past 12 hours as the crypto market rebounded from Tuesday’s support levels.

• Almost 88% of traders betting against an increase in crypto prices booked losses as exchanges closed leveraged positions due to a partial or total evaporation of the trader’s initial margin, data from analytics tool Coinglass show.
• Crypto exchange OKX saw $44 million worth of short losses, the most among all crypto exchanges, followed by $22 million on Binance and $11 million on Bybit, data show.
• Some $47.45 million of bitcoin (BTC) futures were liquidated in the past 12 hours, the most among major cryptocurrencies. Ether (ETH) futures had $22 million in losses, followed by LUNA with $12 million.

• Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies made an unusual showing. Futures tracking Monero’s XMR and Zcash’s ZEC recorded $1 million worth of losses as prices of the two surged as much as 25% in the past 24 hours. The jump outperformed the broader market, which increased 6% in the same period.
• Bitcoin traded above $41,000 in the European morning, up from $38,000 on Tuesday, as a U.S. presidential executive order on cryptocurrencies supported "responsible innovation" of the sector. The executive order is widely expected to be signed by U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
• The losses stemming from short positions contributed to a total of $114 million in liquidations, affecting nearly 46,700 individual trading accounts, data show.