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Ethereum and Solana Hit Key Levels as Bitcoin Rises
Bitcoin has surpassed $66,000, reaching its highest level since mid-June, when prices hovered above $67,000.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) is currently up 4.7% over the past 24 hours, as buyers are hovering around the $66,670 level. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) rose above $3,500 and Solana (SOL) is trading above $170, with gains of 3% and 8% respectively.
Other altcoins are also seeing positive trends, with BNB (BNB) up 4.9%, Dogecoin (DOGE) up 4.5%, and Cardano (ADA) up 3%.
Bitcoin Rises Despite Global IT Outage
The surge in Bitcoin’s price came as discussions continued over the potential inclusion of the flagship cryptocurrency as a strategic national reserve asset for the United States.
The key to Bitcoin’s surge to intraday highs above $66,800 was the chaos that accompanied a serious IT disruption Friday, with airlines grounded and banks, media and other global businesses struggling.
The outage occurred following a software update by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike.
As widespread disruptions highlighted Bitcoin’s strengths, the market seemed to be picking up signs of a new rebound. The space also saw a huge spike in spot ETF volume.
Shorts Feel the Impact of Bitcoin Price Surge
Meanwhile, the price surge has made shorts disappear. The last hour, as of 2:24 PM ET on Friday, for example, saw over $6 million in BTC shorts liquidated, compared to just $79,700 in long positions.
The data shows liquidations Over the past four hours, more than $12 million worth of bearish bets on bitcoin have been liquidated, compared to about $1.6 million in long positions.
In the broader market, over $30 million of short positions were liquidated in the last four hours. This far outweighs long liquidations, as only $5.3 million of long positions were liquidated in this period.
On Thursday, Santiment analysts had noticed a surge in short positions in the bitcoin market, with the BTC price hovering below $63k. Liquidations increased as the BTC price surged above $66,800.