Bitcoin price spike above $45,800 caused over $73 million in short liquidations

Over the past 24 hours, bitcoin briefly surged to a year-to-date high of over $45,800, propelled by the increasing anticipation that regulatory approval for U.S.-based spot bitcoin ETFs could be granted soon.

The largest digital asset by market cap has since posted a slight retrace to change hands for $45,353 at 7:00 a.m. ET. Major altcoins such as solana, the native token of the Solana network, and ether also posted daily gains of 10% and 4% respectively, according to The Block's Prices Page .

The spike in prices over the past day led to a substantial liquidation of short positions on centralized exchanges. The volatility resulted in the liquidations of more than $81 million in bitcoin positions, with the majority ($73.2 million) being shorts.

The bitcoin price has increased above the $45,000 mark. Image: The Block's Price Page.

The overall crypto market saw over $133 million of liquidated short positions in the last 24 hours, contributing to a total of $177 million in liquidations across various centralized exchanges, according to CoinGlass data .

In derivatives markets, liquidations take place when a trader's position is forcibly closed due to insufficient funds to cover losses. This situation arises when market movements are unfavorable to the trader's position, resulting in the depletion of their initial margin or collateral.

Spot bitcoin ETF anticipation grows

The global cryptocurrency market cap hit $1.84 trillion on Tuesday, an increase of 5.26% in the past 24 hours. Expectations that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve several spot bitcoin ETFs could be a catalyst for the current upward movement in the entire cryptocurrency market.

A weekend Reuters report indicated that the regulatory agency could start notifying ETF sponsors as early as Tuesday regarding the approval status of their applications.

The report said that ahead of the Jan. 10 deadline  for the SEC to decide whether or not to approve the spot bitcoin ETF proposed by Ark Investments and 21Shares, the regulatory body may let other asset managers know if their applications will be approved by Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. These asset managers include firms such as Valkyrie, Bitwise, WisdomTree,  Franklin Templeton, BlackRock, VanEck, and Invesco.