Cryptocurrency short position liquidations exceeded $3.1 billion over a two-day span, according to data from CoinGlass covering August 19-20. Thursday marked the largest single-day wipeout of short positions ever recorded, driven by an upside reaction in the market following a liquidity intervention by the US Treasury.
Bitcoin led the charge, with the BTC/USD pair reaching local highs of $71,992 on Bitstamp, its highest level since the start of June. CoinGlass data indicates that Bitcoin accounted for just over half of the total short liquidations, totaling $1.65 billion.
Despite the large scale of short liquidations, the event is smaller than previous historical milestones when long positions are factored in. CoinMarketCap data placed Thursday's combined long and short liquidations at $3.25 billion, ranking it seventh historically in US dollar terms.
As prices climbed, Bitcoin investors capitalized on positions that were previously held at an unrealized loss. Onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant reported that short-term holders—wallets holding unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) for less than 155 days—sent a record 43,300 BTC in profit to exchanges, marking their largest profit-taking move of 2026.
The spent output profit ratio (SOPR) metric for the short-term holder cohort reached 1.01, its highest level since April. This reflects that the majority of coins moved from these wallets at a higher price than their previous transaction, overcoming the previous aggregate cost basis of $68,700.
