Bitcoin short positions worth $3.1 billion were liquidated over two days ending Thursday as the cryptocurrency’s price climbed toward $72,000, fueled by a US Treasury liquidity intervention that sent the asset to 11-week highs.
According to CoinGlass data, the two-day liquidation event spanning August 19 and 20 marked a historic moment for the market. Thursday alone saw the largest single-day short liquidation wipeout ever recorded, with CoinMarketCap calculating total liquidations for that day at $3.25 billion across both long and short positions.
Bitcoin’s share of the short liquidations reached $1.65 billion. The price spike to $71,992 on Bitstamp followed the Treasury intervention on Wednesday, which propelled Bitcoin to its highest level since the start of June.
Short-Term Holder Profit-Taking Accelerates
Short-term holders, defined as wallets holding unspent transaction outputs for fewer than 155 days, moved 43,300 BTC to exchanges in what CryptoQuant data shows was the largest profit-taking move of 2026. The cohort’s aggregate cost basis stood at $68,700 per coin.
The SOPR metric for short-term holders reached 1.01 on Thursday, the highest level since April 2026. This indicator measures the ratio of the price at which coins were sold to the price at which they were previously acquired. A reading above 1.0 indicates that the majority of coins moved were sold at a higher price than their previous transaction, signaling profit-taking activity.
Context of Broader Liquidation Events
The $3.1 billion short liquidation event, while historically significant for short positions alone, remains substantially smaller than the $20 billion long liquidation cascade that followed Bitcoin’s reversal from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,200.
The August liquidations underscore the volatility that accompanies rapid price movements in cryptocurrency markets. Data from TradingView and CoinMarketCap tracked the event in real time as traders with leveraged short positions faced forced closures.
