Bitcoin broke out of a six-week trading range on Thursday, climbing past $71,000 and briefly nearing $72,000. Other major coins moved with it. Ether jumped 19% to trade near $2,286, while XRP gained 15%. Short liquidations over the day topped $3 billion, the largest squeeze of its kind since at least 2021.
The move coincided with a burst of institutional demand. Spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $517 million in net inflows in a single day, the best one-day result since early May, while the funds gathered more than $1 billion over the full week.
Six weeks of compression end in a $3 billion liquidation
Bitcoin's price had held inside a narrow band for nearly two months, and many traders bet on a further drop. On Thursday the range finally broke to the upside.
According to CoinDesk, the market force-closed $3 billion worth of short positions, pushing traders to buy the asset back into thin order books. A squeeze of this size hasn't been recorded since at least 2021.
A liquidation of this size is usually set off by one sharp trigger rather than a slow buildup of positions. Here, the range breakout kicked off a chain reaction. Each closed short pushed the price higher and forced the next batch of short sellers to cover.
A six-week compression on its own guarantees nothing. Price could have broken either way. But the longer a range holds, the sharper the move tends to be once it breaks, since a tight corridor lets bets pile up disproportionately on both sides.
Prediction market Myriad flipped its pump-or-dump odds from 70-30 bearish to nearly a coin flip within a single day. Decrypt called it the sharpest daily rally in five months.
ETFs post their biggest inflow since May
Cointelegraph reported spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $517 million in net inflows in just one day, the best single-day result since early May. Over the current week, the funds gathered more than $1 billion.
Inflows into large funds usually run a few days ahead of retail demand. Big portfolio managers open positions first, and private traders follow once they see the move confirmed on the charts.
For a market that has seen more outflow weeks than inflow weeks lately, this week looks like a possible trend change. But one strong week doesn't erase several prior weeks of weak demand, so confirmation is worth watching for in the next round of fund flow reports.
Ether outpaces Bitcoin, XRP adds 15%
Ether rose faster than Bitcoin, gaining 19% on Thursday to trade around $2,286.
Ether outrunning Bitcoin right after Bitcoin clears resistance is a familiar pattern for this stage of a rally. Capital tends to enter the biggest, most liquid asset first, then some of the gains rotate into Ethereum and other large altcoins that lagged on price.
XRP jumped 15% as well. CoinDesk pointed to an interesting detail. A three-hour window spanning the London afternoon and the New York morning now accounts for about 23% of all XRP moved onchain. A year ago that share was just 14%. The market increasingly trades on a schedule tied to traditional exchange hours rather than around the clock.
The sharp move in BTC and ETH prices immediately showed up in activity at Ukrainian exchangers. Some crypto holders who had been waiting for a better price used the moment to sell Bitcoin for hryvnia, while others are holding their positions for further gains.
The day's market data
On its own, each figure below reads like an ordinary daily headline. Together they add up to a market where institutional money, retail demand and a technical range breakout all landed on the same Thursday.
The key figures from the day are collected in the table below.
The dollar is weakening as the Fed hints at more liquidity
CoinDesk's morning market briefing separately flags the macro backdrop. A weaker dollar and Fed signals about future liquidity are on the list of factors that could determine Bitcoin's next move.
Right behind the rally came another debate: whether the market has already priced in the expected passage of the Clarity Act. Erald Ghoos, OKX Europe's CEO, ties the move to capital rotating out of AI stocks and back into crypto.
If the bill gives exchanges and ETF issuers clearer rules, some institutional capital that had been waiting for regulatory clarity may only be entering the market now. Skeptics disagree. In their view, the market already priced in the main scenarios back in spring, when the bill first cleared a Senate committee.
The risks behind a fast bounce
A sharp rally doesn't mean the trend is settled. A few factors could cool sentiment quickly.
- Thin liquidity: much of the move came from forced short covering rather than organic demand, so a pullback could be just as sharp.
- Myriad's prediction market still rates a further drop as an even-odds scenario, not a discarded one.
- Pushing the Senate's Clarity Act vote to September could cool sentiment again among market participants.
- ETF inflows have historically been unstable. A record week is often followed by a week of outflows once the price stalls.
- The dollar and Fed policy can shift the picture faster than any single crypto headline, so the macro backdrop is worth watching closely.
The next few days will show whether the rally has real demand behind it or is just mechanical short covering. If ETF inflows hold at a similar pace for another week, that would be a stronger signal than the price jump itself. Until the macro backdrop and the regulatory pause resolve, the market is unlikely to move in a straight line.
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