Bitcoin Breaks Back Above $80,000 as Short Sellers Are Forced Out

Bitcoin broke above $80,000 on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, and briefly topped $81,000, as more than $300 million in Bitcoin short positions were liquidated over 24 hours, CoinGlass data reported by CoinMarketCap Academy show. The jump forced traders who had bet on a fall to buy back their positions, and that buying pushed the price higher still.

The day began in the opposite direction. Bitcoin fell to about $75,600 overnight as results showed Democrats winning both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections. By late morning the slide had reversed. Bitcoin traded near $80,400 at 10:45 a.m. ET on Wednesday, after breaking back through $80,000.

A squeeze in fast motion

Short sellers bought back about $222 million in Bitcoin positions within an hour, CoinGlass data show, and over the hour to about 10:25 a.m. ET short positions made up nearly all of Bitcoin's liquidations. FXStreet reported that Bitcoin moved past $81,100, with more than $330 million in short positions liquidated in a single hour and total liquidations across the crypto network exceeding $415 million.

The totals differ because each source counts a different window and a different set of positions, and they should not be added together. Crypto.news, citing CoinGlass and Bitfinex data, put crypto short liquidations at $378.09 million in one hour, accounting for 81 percent of forced closures. On that count Bitcoin traded near $80,470, up 4.1 percent over 24 hours, while Ethereum gained 6.1 percent to approximately $2,428.

What traders said drove it

Nicolas Quatravaux, head of EMEA at Paradigm, told CoinDesk that the election result itself was not really a surprise. "Polymarket had a Democratic win above 75% for a while. So overnight was less about the outcome and more about the uncertainty going away," he said, in comments reported by CoinMarketCap Academy.

Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, had told CoinDesk before the break that Bitcoin was oversold and should rally back towards the 82,000 level as its next target.

Levels overhead and money leaving funds

Glassnode found short positions building above the price during the past week's decline, with the largest cluster near $87,000, close to Bitcoin's September high. That cluster is the next pool of positions that a further rise would put under pressure. Glassnode puts support at $73,000 to $76,000, the zone Bitcoin fell into overnight before recovering.

Fund flows pointed the other way. Spot Bitcoin ETFs lost more than $500 million over the two sessions through Tuesday, November 3, Farside data show. Bitfinex, reported by crypto.news, put US spot Bitcoin ETF outflows at $1.16 billion across three sessions, the largest such withdrawal since late June. The price rise on Wednesday therefore came from forced buying in derivatives markets while fund investors were still pulling money out.