Over the past 24 hours, futures bets against higher crypto prices saw losses totaling over $500 million as a strong surge, potentially fueled by a U.S. decision to possibly ease China tariffs, resulted in the largest short liquidations since October.

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied from a low of $88,000 on Tuesday to above $93,500 during the Asian morning hours, leading a broader market jump with ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA, and dogecoin (DOGE) all seeing a 14% increase. Solana’s SOL and XRP also rose by 7%, with all top hundred tokens by market cap showing gains.

Additionally, tokens like Sui Network’s SUI, UniSwap’s UNI, and Near Protocol saw strong gains of up to 18%. Memecoin mog (MOG) surged by 30%, continuing its trend of moving in sync with ETH.

Shorts worth nearly $530 million suffered losses as leveraged bets were unwound, with most short liquidations occurring on Bybit at $234 million, followed by Binance at $100 million and Gate at around $70 million. The largest single liquidation order involved an ETH futures position on Binance, valued at over $4.5 million.

Liquidations happen when an exchange closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a loss of the initial margin. This occurs when a trader doesn’t have enough funds to maintain the trade open.

The spike in crypto markets coincided with Trump’s comments about being open to positive trade talks with China and the possibility of reducing tariffs if a deal is reached. This news helped ease some of the cautious sentiment among traders.

Jeff Mei, COO at BTSE, shared his thoughts on the situation, mentioning the potential for rate cuts and a weakening U.S. dollar, which could explain the surge in bitcoin. If the U.S. dollar continues to depreciate, bitcoin may become a significant store of value as other currencies could also face depreciation.

Overall, the recent market movements reflect a mix of geopolitical factors and investor sentiment, pointing towards a potentially interesting period for the cryptocurrency market.