Bitcoin Tops $81,000 After Midterm Dip, Squeezing Short Sellers

Bitcoin was back above $80,000 by Wednesday morning, more than making up an election-night slide after Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s vote.

Bitcoin changed hands at about $80,500 at 11:10 a.m. ET, up 3.8% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Ether rose 6.3% to about $2,437. On Coinbase, bitcoin had fallen as low as $75,600 in the 10 p.m. ET hour on Tuesday, roughly 2.8% below where it stood at 6 p.m., before reaching $81,130 in the 10 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday. That is a 7.3% climb from low to high, by Unchained’s count of Coinbase’s hourly data.

Get Unchained’s crypto news in your inbox with the free Unchained Daily newsletter.

Two of the co-hosts of Unchained’s Bits + Bips had laid out a similar path the day before the vote. Franklin Crypto Head Christopher Perkins said on the show that “post midterm cycles have been very, very constructive for all markets,” adding, “generally speaking, it’s a very constructive time for markets after midterms.” Lumida CEO Ram Ahluwalia said on the same episode that if Democrats took both chambers, “I think you get a one and done washout, and that resets where asset prices are.”

The squeeze came on the way up rather than the way down. Over the past 24 hours, $950 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated, according to CoinGlass liquidation data. Bets against prices accounted for $560 million, or 58.9%, while long positions made up $391 million.

The skew was sharper in the shorter windows. Shorts made up $514 million of the $670 million liquidated over 12 hours, and $397 million of the $537 million over four hours, CoinGlass data showed.

Bitcoin positions accounted for $403 million of the 24-hour total, 76% of it shorts, while ether positions accounted for $238 million, 55.5% of it shorts. A $38 million long on the ETH-USDT pair at HTX headed CoinGlass’s 24-hour list of single-order liquidations.

The vote still shifts crypto’s policy outlook. The committees that oversee the industry will pass to Democrats when the new Congress is seated in January. Democratic senators blocked the CLARITY Act market structure bill this session.

Related Listen: Is Bitcoin’s Rally a Debasement Trade or a Short Squeeze?

{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@id":"https:\/\/unchainedcrypto.com\/bitcoin-tops-81000-after-midterm-dip-squeezing-short-sellers\/#arve-youtube-bkq-w0yg_8q","@type":"VideoObject","embedURL":"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/BKQ-w0Yg_8Q?feature=oembed&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&autohide=1&playsinline=1&autoplay=0"}

The post Bitcoin Tops $81,000 After Midterm Dip, Squeezing Short Sellers appeared first on Unchained.