Bitcoin short sellers were hit with a wave of forced liquidations on Wednesday as the price of the leading cryptocurrency jumped toward the $70,000 mark.

Liquidations occur when an exchange forcibly closes a leveraged position because its collateral no longer covers the accumulating loss — and for traders betting against bitcoin, that threshold is crossed when the price rises too far against them. More than $1.7 billion in positions held by traders betting against the biggest cryptocurrency was closed over the past 24 hours, according to Coinglass data. The vast majority of those liquidations — $1.5 billion — took place within a four-hour window.

Bitcoin briefly traded as high as $69,000 on Wednesday morning before dipping again. It was recently priced at $68,253, up more than 5% over a 24-hour period.

The surge broke a prolonged period of calm: bitcoin had traded largely flat over the past 30 days, and analysts had pointed out that the coin's volatility was at record lows. Episodes like this one are a recurring feature of crypto's heavily leveraged derivatives markets: because closing a short position requires buying, a cluster of forced closures can amplify an upward move — a dynamic traders refer to as a liquidation cascade.

Bitcoin has benefited, along with other "risk-on" assets, from news that the U.S. Treasury planned to more than double the size of its government debt repurchases. The announcement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was aimed at taming yields, which had surged to levels not seen in nearly 20 years. Lower long-term yields reduce the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally support risk-on sentiment.

Expectations of pro-crypto regulatory news may have also played a role. President Trump on Wednesday was set to hold a meeting with crypto and prediction market executives. Although a vote on the long-awaited Clarity Act — a bill that would divide oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — has been delayed, regulators have been keen to press forward with rules the industry has long called for. On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a proposed framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead despite the landmark legislation stalling. For an industry that has long complained about regulatory uncertainty, the coming weeks offer a series of scheduled signposts: the eventual Clarity Act vote, the fate of the SEC's proposal, and whatever policy signals emerge from Wednesday's meeting.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.