Bitcoin (BTC) Liquidations Hit $73.5 Million as Long Traders Take the Brunt

$247.7 Million Wiped From Leveraged Positions

Bitcoin (BTC) traders betting on upside paid the heaviest price over the past 24 hours, with roughly $247.68 million in leveraged positions forcibly closed across the digital-asset derivatives market as the asset grappled with the $78,000 zone. Aggregate liquidation data as of 03:48 UTC shows long-side closures accounted for $162.63 million, or 65.7% of the total, while short positions absorbed $85.04 million. Some 84,930 traders were wiped out during the session. Bitcoin price mechanics explain why the flagship bore the largest share: the asset logged $73.48 million in closed positions, the biggest single-asset figure among major cryptocurrencies. Of that, long liquidations reached $59.60 million against just $13.88 million on the short side — bullish leveraged traders took roughly 4.3 times more forced losses than bears. Ethereum (ETH) followed with $44.55 million in total closures, split between $27.93 million in longs and $16.62 million in shorts. Combined, BTC and ETH long closures totaled $87.53 million, exceeding half of all long-side liquidations market-wide — clear evidence that leverage pointed at the two flagship assets absorbed the bulk of the deleveraging. Mechanically, a liquidation occurs when an exchange force-closes a leveraged position once margin falls below the maintenance threshold. The episode lands on a macro-heavy calendar; we recently outlined how Bitcoin hovers near $79K ahead of PPI and CPI inflation data, a schedule keeping volatility elevated. Traders sizing leverage through such conditions can compare margin terms in our Best Crypto Exchanges guide.

Altcoin Shorts Catch a Bid as Intraday Flow Flips

The headline 24-hour total masks a market that was internally divided across shorter windows. Over the final four hours, total liquidations ran $9.54 million, with shorts at $5.04 million outpacing longs at $4.50 million. The 12-hour window told the same story: short closures hit $37.42 million versus $31.44 million for longs. Only when the full day is aggregated does the long-side damage dominate — roughly 1.9 times the short-side figure — indicating the squeeze on bullish leverage came earlier in the period before intraday flow tilted toward flushing bears. The divergence extended into individual altcoins. XRP bucked the flagship pattern, with $3.18 million in short liquidations exceeding $2.19 million in long closures — bearish bets being cleared as price firmed. ZEC skewed even harder: $5.26 million in short positions were closed, more than double its $2.34 million in longs. Solana (SOL) mirrored the majors, with longs accounting for $5.53 million of its roughly $7.31 million total. Our altcoin market hub tracks these asset-level flows as they settle. The largest single closure order of the session came from Binance's BTCUSDT pair, where one position worth $2.96 million was wiped in a single print — a scale consistent with a heavily leveraged retail-to-pro book rather than a crypto whale account being unwound, though even modest forced flows can accelerate a move when order books thin near round-number support. The session's tilt toward forced upside closures extends the risk-off texture we flagged when Bitcoin's gold correlation hit a six-year high, underscoring that leverage — not spot — is where directional risk concentrates right now, a core argument of the HODL strategy for unhedged holders. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

$78,284 Support Is the Line to Defend

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the $78,284 support at 83/100 (STRONG), driven by the confluence of the 20-day EMA, the 0.214 Fibonacci retracement, the ATR lower band and the S2 pivot. Overhead, the $82,300 resistance scores 72/100 on the 0.000 Fibonacci level, Donchian Upper and a swing high. Perpetual funding sits at a mild 0.0052%, open interest at $15.61 billion, and the long/short account ratio at 1.38 (57.9% long), while the Fear & Greed Index reads 66 (Greed) and RSI holds 61.32 despite a bearish MACD signal within an uptrend. Holding $78,284 keeps a retest of $82,300 live; a daily close below it invalidates the bullish case and exposes the $76,264 shelf. Spot holders running a long-term HODL approach face none of this forced-closure risk.