Bitcoin Gives Up $27K in Sharp Tumble as Crypto Liquidations Top $100M

Bitcoin (BTC) rise above $27,000 proved short-lived, as the token tumbled about 2% in minutes during early afternoon U.S. hours to $26,700.

The largest and oldest cryptocurrency had advanced to as high as $27,420 earlier Monday, its highest price since late August.

BTC was still up 0.8% over the past 24 hours, underperforming the broad-market proxy CoinDesk Market Index’s (CMI) 1.1% rise.

Notable outperformers today are Solana’s SOL, Litecoin’s LTC and bitcoin cash (BCH), up 3%-4% even after paring some of their early gains. Chainlink’s native token LINK soared nearly 8% today amid new partnerships with traditional financial institutions.

The whipsaw in prices caught some crypto derivatives traders off-guard, liquidating roughly $100 million worth of leveraged trading positions over the past 24 hours, according to Coinglass data. Short traders, who attempted to profit from lower prices, endured $60 million in losses, while long traders, who bet on higher prices, suffered $40 million in losses.