Short Sellers Lose Nearly $3 Billion As Bitcoin’s Price Spikes

Short Sellers Lose Nearly $3 Billion As Bitcoin’s Price Spikes

Thu, August 20, 2026 at 4:49 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• BTC-USD +8.48%
• BTC +4.43%

Short sellers quickly lost close to $3 billion U.S. on their bearish bets as the price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) jumped above $70,000 U.S. late on Aug. 19.

Market data shows that traders and investors who were short Bitcoin lost $2.70 billion U.S. in the past 24 hours as the price of BTC got as high as $72,000 U.S.

Total liquidations due to the sharp rise in Bitcoin's price impacted 172,108 professional traders, according to data from CoinGlass. It's the biggest loss on Bitcoin short bets since 2021.

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Shorting a stock means that traders and investors are betting that an asset's price will decline over a set period of time.

Bitcoin had been stuck trading in narrow range between $60,000 U.S. and $65,000 U.S. over the past six weeks and Wall Street had been betting on further declines in the price.

But BTC has risen 11% in the past 24 hours after U.S. President Donald Trump called publicly for Congress to pass the Clarity Act that provides a regulatory framework for digital assets.

Short sellers last got hurt by Bitcoin in October 2025, when BTC crashed days after setting a record price of just over $126,000 U.S.

The price crash last October cost short sellers $2.47 billion U.S. in losses.

In early trading on Aug. 20, Bitcoin's price was at $71,400 U.S.