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Bitcoin continued to rise early Tuesday, topping a price of $75,000 and hitting its highest level since early February as bears betting against BTC and other leading cryptocurrencies saw rising short liquidations.
The leading crypto asset was recently trading at $75,834, per data from CoinGecko, rising above the $75,000 mark for the first time since March 16. At that recent price, Bitcoin is at its highest level since the first days of February.
Bitcoin is up 5.5% over the last day, putting up a more than 10% rise over the past week as other major coins show even larger gains during the same span.
Ethereum, for example, is up nearly 8% in the last 24 hours to a recent price of $2,384, rising more than 14% on the week. HYPE, the token of decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, is up 22% this week to a recent price of $44, while privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) is resuming its massive rise from last fall, up nearly 38% this week to $366.
Crypto prices have been broadly down in the dumps in recent months, but Tuesday’s surge has led to a growing pile of liquidations, currently tallying over $600 million in the last day per data from CoinGlass—with the majority of those coming from short positions, or bets that an asset’s price will go down.
Of that tally, over $488 million are shorts. Bitcoin liquidations tally $272 million in the last day, with $262 million of those coming from short positions, while Ethereum liquidations are next up at $140 million—$121 million of which came from shorts.
Major stock indices are also green early Tuesday, with crypto stocks like stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL, up 11%) and Ethereum treasury firm Sharplink (SBET, up 10%) among the biggest gainers linked to the crypto world.
What’s driving the surge? Risk-on sentiment is growing as geopolitical chaos cools, thanks to a tentative ceasefire in the conflict between the U.S./Israel and Iran, plus there have been other positive indicators in the space.
Crypto ETFs just had their best week since January, while top Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy bought $1 billion in Bitcoin on the back of its popular STRC preferred shares, and top Ethereum treasury BitMine Immersion Technologies just made its largest weekly ETH buy since December.