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bitcoin has surpassed $66,000, reaching its highest level since mid-June when prices were around $67,000.
bitcoin (btc) price is currently up 4.7% over the past 24 hours as buyers hover around $66,670. Meanwhile, ethereum (eth) has surged above $3,500 and Solana (SOL) is trading above $170, with gains of 3% and 8% respectively.
Other altcoins are also trading positively: BNB (BNB) is up 4.9%, Dogecoin (DOGE) is up 4.5% and Cardano (ADA) is up 3%.
bitcoin surges amid global IT disruption
The rally in bitcoin price came as talks continued over the potential inclusion of the benchmark cryptocurrency as a strategic national reserve for the US.
Key to bitcoin's surge to intraday highs above $66,800 was the chaos that accompanied a major IT outage on Friday, with airlines grounded and banks, media and other global businesses disrupted.
The outage came after a software update by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike.
As widespread cyber outages highlighted bitcoin’s strengths, the market seemed to take cues for a fresh rally. The space also witnessed a huge surge in spot ETF volume.
Shorts suffer as bitcoin price rises
Meanwhile, rising prices have wiped out short positions. In the past hour, as of 14:24 ET on Friday, for example, over $6 million in btc short positions have been liquidated, compared to just $79,700 in long positions.
The data shows liquidations Over $12 million worth of short bets on bitcoin have been liquidated in the past four hours, compared to around $1.6 million in long positions.
In the broader market, over $30 million worth of short positions were liquidated in the past four hours. This far outweighs long position liquidations, as only $5.3 million worth of long positions were liquidated in this period.
On Thursday, Santiment analysts had noticed an increase in short positions in the bitcoin market, with the btc price hovering below $63,000. Liquidations increased as the btc price rose to over $66,800.
