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Bitcoin Climbs Above $80,000 as One-Hour Crypto Liquidations Reach $110 Million

According to PANews, Odaily, alerts, and CoinGlass, Bitcoin rose above 80,000 USDT on OKX for the first time since January 31, triggering a short-led wave of crypto derivatives liquidations.

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Fact Check
The specific $79,220 figure is directly confirmed by the Bitcoin Magazine X post dated May 3, 2026 ('Bitcoin reaches $79,220'). The two PANews articles citing OKX data independently corroborate that Bitcoin was trading above $79,000 on May 3–4, 2026, with prices of $79,034.10 and $79,000.50 recorded. The $79,220 level is consistent with intraday price movement within the confirmed $79,000+ range. No conflicting evidence was found. Confidence is medium rather than high because the PANews/OKX sources do not independently confirm the exact $79,220 figure — only Bitcoin Magazine's social media post does — and no direct OKX exchange data page was retrievable to independently verify the precise peak.
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Summary

Bitcoin advanced from trading above 79,000 USDT to reclaiming 80,000 USDT on OKX, with Odaily reporting 80,001.9 USDT and a 24-hour gain of 2.27%, while a separate alert said it was the first move above $80,000 since January 31. Earlier PANews updates placed BTC at 79,034.10 on May 3 and 79,000.50 on May 4, while another alert cited 79,220 without naming an exchange. As Bitcoin broke above $80,000, crypto derivatives markets saw heavy short liquidations. One set of reports put one-hour liquidations at $110 million, with about 98% from shorts, including $70.28 million in Bitcoin and $25.31 million in Ethereum, while CoinGlass reported $106 million total, including $104 million in shorts and $2.1 million in longs, with Bitcoin at $69.87 million and Ethereum at $24.53 million. The figures vary slightly across sources, but together they show Bitcoin reclaiming a key psychological level and sparking a broad short squeeze.

Terms & Concepts
  • Liquidation: A forced closure of a leveraged trading position when losses breach margin requirements on an exchange.
  • Short squeeze: A rapid upward move caused when traders betting on lower prices are forced to buy back assets to exit shorts.
  • USDT: Tether, a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin widely used as a quote currency in cryptocurrency trading.