Bitcoin’s (BTC) surge above $27,000 proved short-lived, with the token falling around 2% in a matter of minutes in early afternoon trading in the US to hit $26,700 .
The largest and oldest cryptocurrency had hit $27,420 earlier Monday, its highest price since late August.
BTC was still up 0.8% over the past 24 hours, underperforming the 1.1% rise in the market-wide CoinDesk Market Index (CMI).
Notable outperformers today are Solana’s SOL, Litecoin’s LTC, and bitcoin cash (BCH), up 3-4% even after paring some of their early gains. Chainlink’s native LINK token soared nearly 8% today thanks to new partnerships with traditional financial institutions.
The price drop caught some crypto derivatives traders off guard, liquidating around $100 million in leveraged trading positions in the past 24 hours, according to Coinglass data. Short traders, who were trying to profit from falling prices, suffered losses of $60 million, while short traders, who were betting on higher prices, suffered losses of $40 million.