$281M Worth of Bears Discover Gravity 🌰

A short squeeze drove a broad crypto rally on Friday, with bitcoin pushing toward $62,000 and ether and solana leading major tokens higher in the market's strongest week since mid-June. Bitcoin traded around $61,360, up 2.5% over seven days, according to CoinDesk data, while ether rose 4.2% in 24 hours to about $1,702 and is up 9.7% on the week. Solana held near $80 with a weekly gain of 18.6%, the strongest among the majors, and XRP added 5.7% over the week to $1.09, while Hyperliquid's HYPE rose 5.1% on the day.

Traders betting against crypto lost $281 million to liquidations over the past 24 hours, against $159 million in longs, out of $440 million in total forced closures across 95,690 traders, per Coinglass data. The largest single liquidation was an $18.2 million ether position on Hyperliquid. Ether accounted for $157 million in wiped-out bearish positions against $103 million for bitcoin, an unusual flip in which the second-largest token did more damage to shorts than the largest. When shorts are forced to close, they buy back the asset, and that buying pushes prices into the next tranche of shorts, the loop that can turn a modest bounce into a squeeze.

The macro backdrop supported the move. U.S. June employment data came in weaker than expected on Thursday, trimming bets that the Federal Reserve will raise rates again and weakening the dollar against most major currencies, according to Bloomberg. Softer hiring reduces the case for the restrictive policy that has weighed on crypto since the Fed's hawkish June outlook, and gold climbed for a third day as those rate-hike bets faded.

Equities steadied alongside crypto. Asian shares rallied after two days of tech-led losses, with South Korea's Kospi climbing 3% after flirting with a technical bear market. Samsung Electronics rose 6.8% after reports that AI firm Anthropic is in talks with the Korean company to manufacture a custom AI chip, a reminder that the AI spending underpinning this year's equity rally remains intact.