- Bitcoin reached a high of $23,342 on Binance, with a breakout of over $22,000, extending its year-to-date gains.
- BTC price is up 30% in a month and has recovered by 47% since falling to $15,500 lows.
- Short liquidations totaled about $376 million in the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin price roared to highs above $23,000 on Saturday morning, rising to $23,342 on Binance as the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap last seen in mid-August 2022.
BTC was changing hands around $22,900 at the time of writing, up about 9% in the past 24 hours after shedding some of the profits.
However, the price of Bitcoin was still up 35% in the last 30 days and according to crypto trader and analyst Rekt Capital pointed out earlier this morning, BTC was up more than 47% since falling to a low of $15,500 amid the FTX dump.
Bitcoin price chart with BTC rallying to $23,000 on January 21, 2023. Source: TradingView
On-chain data platform Santiment noted just before today’s break above $23k that Bitcoin’s price rally came amid optimistic outlook from major BTC investors. If the firm highlights in the chart below, whale addresses with 1,000 to 10,000 BTC have accumulated more than 64,638 bitcoins worth more than $1.46 billion in the past two weeks.
🐳 #Bitcoin has now surpassed $22.7k for the first time since August 18, 2022. The price increase has come because the large whale level group of addresses has increased by 1,000 to 10,000 $BTC collectively collected 64,638 ($1.46 billion). $BTC in the past 15 days. 👍 https://t.co/H6jCsZDgUR pic.twitter.com/RaN2I48ybg
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 20, 2023
Liquidated over $376 million in shorts
As Bitcoin raced to highs near $23,350, liquidation data showed that about 80,497 traders had liquidated in the past 24 hours.
According to Coinglass, the largest short liquidation was on Bitmex, where an order worth $4.53 million was paid. Total liquidations as of 6:10 a.m. ET on January 21st totaled $376.61 million.
Notably, total liquidations are not at the level seen when BTC/USD broke above $20,000 last week to erase all post-FTX losses. Nevertheless, it still shows that some traders are convinced that this could be a giant bull trap.
But as it stands, further upside momentum could see bulls target $25,000 or possibly higher if sentiment in the risk markets helps ease buying pressure.
