Bitcoin price quickly climbs to $31K, liquidating $100M of shorts

Bitcoin (BTC) passing $30,000 and hitting highs of near $31,000 has caused huge pain for traders betting on a bearish pullback.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets, Cryptometer and TradingView confirmed that as BTC/USD peaked at $30,960 on Jan. 2, it liquidated $100 million of shorts.

BTC shorters feel the burn... again

Amid highly volatile conditions, Bitcoin attempted to crack $30,000 several times on New Year's Day and overnight before finally clinching the psychologically significant level on Saturday.

The move was accompanied by a bullish charge which soon took the largest cryptocurrency even higher, with press-time levels attempting to crack $31,000.

While many celebrated, however, some were left far worse off than just minutes previously. 

Liquidated short on XBTUSD: Buy 10,000,000 @ 30864 ~ I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

— REKT (@BXRekt) January 2, 2021

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" a telling tweet from a bot tracking liquidated trades on derivatives giant BitMEX summarized.

Figures suggest that shorters on BitMEX alone lost $10 million, a grim reminder of the dangers involved in second guessing Bitcoin at crucial levels.

Dogecoin leads sudden altcoin gains

Elsewhere, altcoin markets began to see changes of their own. Dogecoin (DOGE), a curious amover, gained 42% on the day, while leader Ether (ETH) surged back above $750.

Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michaël van de Poppe, who believes that this month will herald the start of a broader "alt season," was characteristically bullish.

"The higher this impulse wave goes for #Bitcoin , the higher the next one will be as well. 2021 is going to be fire," he tweeted as $30,000 hit.

Others in the top ten cryptocurrencies showed less volatile behavior, while nothing could lift XRP, still floundering amid legal problems at major investor Ripple Labs.