Bitcoin bulls push BTC to highs of $23,300

• Bitcoin hit highs of $23,342 on Binance, with a breakout above $22k extending year-to-date gains.
• BTC price is up 30% in a month and has recovered 47% since the decline to $15,500 lows.
• Short liquidations were around $376 million in the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin price roared to highs above $23,000 on Saturday morning, rising to $23,342 on Binance as the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap hit levels last seen in mid-August 2022.

BTC was changing hands around $22,900 at the time of writing, about 9% up in the past 24 hours after shedding some of the gains. 

The price of Bitcoin was, however, still 35% up in the past 30 days, and as crypto trader and analyst Rekt Capital pointed out earlier this morning, BTC had rallied over 47% since falling to lows of $15,500 amid the FTX dump.

🐳 #Bitcoin has now surpassed $22.7k for the first time since August 18, 2022. The price rise has come as the large whale tier group of addresses holding 1,000 to 10,000 $BTC has collectively accumulated 64,638 ($1.46 billion) $BTC in the past 15 days. 👍 https://t.co/H6jCsZDgUR pic.twitter.com/RaN2I48ybg

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 20, 2023

Over $376 million in shorts liquidated

As Bitcoin raced to highs near $23,350, liquidation data showed that in the past 24 hours, about 80,497 traders had been liquidated.

According to Coinglass, the largest short liquidation was on Bitmex where an order worth $4.53million was rekt. The total liquidations as of 06:10 am ET on 21 January were $376.61 million. 

Notably, total liquidations are not at the levels seen when BTC/USD broke above $20,000 last week towards erasing all post-FTX losses. Nonetheless, it still shows some traders are convinced this could be a gigantic bull trap. 

But as it is, further upside momentum could see bulls target $25,000 or possibly higher if sentiment across risk markets helps bouy buy pressure.