Crypto short liquidations pass $3B mark as Bitcoin price nears $72K

Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins are breaking records as short position liquidations pass $3 billion over two days.

Key points:

• Crypto short liquidations since Thursday are in excess of $3.1 billion, per CoinGlass data.
• Bitcoin continues its upside reaction to a US Treasury liquidity intervention, approaching $72,000.
• Bitcoin short-term holders take profit on previously underwater positions and move 43,300 BTC.

Two-day crypto short liquidations hit $3.1 billion

Data from CoinGlass shows ongoing crypto short liquidations at $3.1 billion for Aug. 19-20. Thursday’s tally was largest single-day wipeout of shorts ever recorded.

Crypto liquidations history (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

On Wednesday, BTC/USD led the charge by reacting to a liquidity intervention by the US Treasury with a price spike to the highest levels seen since the start of June. At the time of writing, upside continues, with the pair reaching local highs of $71,992 on Bitstamp, per data from TradingView.

BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

CoinGlass shows Bitcoin accounting for just over half of the total short liquidations at $1.65 billion.

The numbers do not represent the largest crypto liquidation event if long positions are included. It is dwarfed by the $20 billion long liquidation cascade that followed Bitcoin’s reversal from the most recent all-time high of $126,200 in October 2025.

In US dollar terms, data from CoinMarketCap puts Thursday’s total liquidations in seventh place historically, calculating the day’s long and short liquidations as $3.25 billion.

Bitcoin speculators take profit as cost basis returns

Bitcoin investors, meanwhile, capitalized on positions that were previously held at an unrealized loss.

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Short-term holders — wallets holding a UTXO for less than 155 days — sent a record 43,300 BTC in profit to exchanges in their largest profit-taking move of 2026, per onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant.

Bitcoin STH profit and loss to exchanges (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

As of Thursday, the spent output profit ratio (SOPR) metric for the short-term holder (STH) cohort stood at 1.01, its highest since April. This reflects that the majority of coins in UTXOs from STH wallets moved at a higher price than in their previous transaction.

Bitcoin STH-SOPR data. Source: CryptoQuant

Previously, Cointelegraph reported that the STH cohort’s aggregate cost basis, also known as the STH realized price, stood at $68,700. At the time, analysis warned that any price upside could be stifled by the urge of investors in this cohort to exit underwater positions.