Bitcoin Blasts to $90K as Crypto Rally Shakes Out $900M of Leveraged Bets

• Bitcoin briefly hit $90,100 on Coinbase before quickly succumbing to sell pressure.
• The wild swing in crypto prices liquidated over $900 million of leveraged derivatives trading positions across all digital assets, CoinGlass shows.
• Ripple’s XRP, XLM and HBAR advanced 15%-18% outperforming the CoinDesk 20 Index.

Unmute

The crypto bull market shows no signs of stopping, with bitcoin (BTC) reaching another milestone by hitting the $90,000 level on crypto exchange Coinbase.

The largest crypto retraced around 5% to the low-$85,000 level earlier Tuesday, shaking out some late leveraged buyers. The pullback didn’t last long, though, with prices quickly rebounding and clinching a new all-time high of $90,100 on Coinbase’s BTC-USD pair towards the later hours of the U.S. session before giving back some of the gains. The CoinDesk Bitcoin Index (XBX), which tracks pricing data from multiple exchanges, hit $89,971 as the price on Coinbase topped $90,000.

The $90,000 level could pose a significant barrier for bitcoin’s rise, at least for the short term. On popular crypto exchange Binance, order book data of the most liquid trading pair BTC-USDT showed mounting sell orders at the $90,000 level. Positioning on the options market also suggest that BTC’s rise may stall out in the $90,000-$100,000 range.

Indeed, within minutes of reaching the $90,000 level, prices reversed with bitcoin sinking to $88,500, still up 0.9% over the past 24 hours and outperforming the broader CoinDesk 20 Index, which was flat over the same time period.

Ethereum’s ether (ETH) and solana (SOL) slipped 2%-3%, while Ripple’s XRP (XRP), stellar lumens (XLM) and hedera (HBAR) outperformed, advancing 15%-18%.

The wild price swings liquidated $940 million of leveraged derivatives trading positions across all digital assets over the past 24 hours, CoinGlass data shows, the largest amount since the August 5 market crash as unwinding Japanese yen carry trades that day brought BTC briefly below $50,000.

Crypto prices are melting upwards since Donald Trump’s decisive U.S. election victory last week as investors are piling into the asset class in anticipation of more crypto-friendly regulations, with cooling inflation, solid economic growth and global monetary easing providing additional tailwind for risk assets.

“More than retail investors, institutions are driven by government signals,” Nathan McCauley, CEO and co-founder of digital asset custody provider Anchorage Digital, said in an emailed note. “The anticipation of a pro-crypto government next year is proving to be an institutional catalyst—the likes of which we have never seen.”

UPDATE (Nov. 12, 21:40 UTC): Adds Binance order book data, CoinDesk Bitcoin Index pricing. Updates prices.

Edited by Stephen Alpher.