Bitcoin sellers stunned by 3,368% imbalance of short position liquidation

According to U.Today, on Wednesday, May 21, there was an abnormal spike in forced closures of bitcoin short positions, with a ratio of 3,368% against closed buy orders in just one hour.

The liquidated short positions amounted to about $3.27 million versus $97,000 in long positions. The event has occurred despite the absence of influential news or extreme market shifts, being caused only by a spike in bitcoin price.

Within a short period of time, bitcoin rose by 0.94% from $106,400 to $107,400, thereby triggering a series of forced short exits.

The liquidation imbalance displays the imbalance of market positioning. Many short positions were overleveraged or set with hard stop-losses, though growth of quotations was rather moderate. 

Over the last 24 hours, positions totaling $239.47 million have been liquidated among all cryptocurrencies, with short positions taking a bigger hit. After an hour of bitcoin’s rise, $10.29 million of shorts were liquidated, out of a total hourly liquidation of $11.01 million. This pattern persisted throughout the day, indicating a larger volume of bearish trades rather than a reaction to a single event.