A surge in Bitcoin (BTC) overnight led to major gains across the crypto market, with Cardano’s ADA and Ether (ETH) rising as much as 7%. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) added 15%, Stacks (STX) surged 21%, and tokens of Chinese Ethereum Conflux (CFX) rose as much as 30%. This caused crypto market capitalization to rise 5%, adding nearly $50 billion in value and resulting in $125 million in short liquidations across crypto-traded futures.
Traders shorting Bitcoin lost $54 million, followed by Ether, Sui (SUI) and XRP. Liquidation occurs when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a partial or complete loss of the trader’s initial margin. This happens when a trader is unable to meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position.
The surge was likely fueled by hopes surrounding a potential U.S. Bitcoin ETF filing by investment giant BlackRock. Eitan Katz, CEO of Kima, shared, BlackRock’s ETF presents a statement or unique ‘solution’ if you will that makes it different from previous ETF filings. It includes a surveillance sharing agreement with Nasdaq, which means that Nasdaq will have access to the trading data, including customer IDs – all with the intention to make it significantly more immune to market manipulations by traders. Katz added, Should the application be approved as many are speculating based on BlackRock’s success rates in its ETF filings, it will lend legitimacy to the cryptocurrency which is bound to draw in more investors including corporate and high net-worth individuals.