BTC Breaks $78.5K, Shorts Paid 58%, ETH Bears Hit Hardest
BTC pressed above $78,500 on Monday evening and dragged the liquidation board with it. In the 24 hours to 19:50 Beijing time, exchanges cleared $370.7 million in positions, with shorts taking 58% of the damage: $213.4 million against $157.3 million from longs. The coin-by-coin breakdown says more than the headline, because ETH bears and XRP bulls ended up on opposite sides of the same tape.
BTC shorts pay 58% of a $370.7M day
Total liquidations hit $370.7 million across 76,060 orders in the past 24 hours, and shorts paid $213.4 million, or 57.6% of the total. The lean has been building for hours: shorts covered 74% of the $82.2 million wiped in the 4-hour window, and 85% of the $53.5 million in the last hour alone, $45.6 million of it. That is a squeeze signature, not a crash. BTC rose 1.15% to $78,086 on Binance with a 24-hour high of $78,594, while ETH added 2.5% to $2,489.
ETH bears took the biggest hit: $140M, 67% short
Ethereum led all coins with $140.3 million in liquidations, and 67% of it was short money: $94.2 million versus $46.1 million in longs. The single largest wipe on the board was an ETH short, a $6.91 million position on Binance at $2,482.89. Beyond that one, the feed shows a cluster of ETH shorts above $1 million each liquidated on Binance over the past few hours as the token worked toward its $2,508 high. Ethereum sits near $2,490 after the push, and the short side is the one bleeding.
The split trade: XRP longs paid, ZEC shorts paid
XRP ran the mirror image. The token slipped 0.4% to $1.49, and its $23.8 million in liquidations were 65% longs, $15.5 million against $8.3 million in shorts. It swung from a high of $1.55 down to $1.45 before buyers returned. ZEC flipped the script with $14.3 million wiped, 67% short, while the coin stayed up 1.6% at $836 after its earlier squeeze. TRUMP sat between them at $15.1 million, almost evenly split between longs and shorts, with the price flat at $2.52.
The last hour is telling
Shorts lost $45.6 million in the past 60 minutes, 85% of all liquidations in that span, as BTC poked at $78,600 and ETH wicks caught the short book. Binance cleared $162.2 million over 24 hours, the largest share at 44%, followed by OKX at $85.8 million, Bybit at $32.8 million, and Gate and Hyperliquid just under $30 million each. When the top venue prints short liquidations faster than longs, short-side momentum tends to stall, which usually means covering.
What to watch next
BTC is up 1.15% but has settled back under $78,300 after touching $78,594, and that high is the level that matters. If shorts keep paying at this rate, a push through $79,000 could bring another round of covering. On the downside, $76,650 is the day's low and the first support. For Ethereum, breaking $2,508 opens the path, while a slip under $2,385 exposes the long stack from earlier. The key tell remains the coin-level split: bears paying on ETH and ZEC, bulls paying on XRP, which points to rotating leverage rather than a broad unwind.
Data as of 19:50 Beijing time on August 24, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget and other major exchanges.