Over $1.2B in Crypto Shorts Liquidated as Bitcoin Hits $103K

The single most painful individual story came from Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives exchange. One trader deposited $5 million and opened a 25x leveraged short on Ethereum. Within eight hours, that position was forcibly closed. The trader walked away with roughly $200,000 from a $5 million starting stake, a loss of about $4.8 million.

Two catalysts collided at once, giving the move extra force. Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade went live, targeting improvements to staking infrastructure and Layer 2 scalability. Positive signals around banks engaging with crypto assets lifted broader market confidence at exactly the wrong moment for anyone holding short positions.

The combination created a classic short squeeze setup. According to Coinglass, funding rates were neutral and exchange balances had been declining ahead of the move, suggesting long-term holders were quietly accumulating rather than selling.

With $900 million in short positions gone, the market’s net positioning has shifted. For spot investors watching from the sidelines, the 20% single-day ETH move is the kind of data point that tends to generate attention. Ethereum had been underperforming Bitcoin for an extended stretch, and a gain of that magnitude in one session changes the momentum calculus.

The Pectra upgrade provides a fundamental backdrop that wasn’t present during previous ETH rallies. Staking and Layer 2 improvements are infrastructure developments that institutional allocators actually read about before committing capital.