The price of bitcoin surpassed $40,000 on Monday, marking the first time the market has done so since mid-June.
At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was trading at $40,085 on Coinbase, up more than 17% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin’s price last rose above $40,000 on June 16, as shown in the graph below.
According to The Block, the market move comes only hours after bitcoin’s rise above $39,000 sparked the liquidation of $883 million in crypto short bets. With $720 million liquidated, 81 percent of those liquidations were related to bitcoin short holdings.
Market watchers attributed the price movement to a variety of causes, including speculation regarding Amazon’s interest in cryptocurrencies and Chinese regulators’ continuous investigation of the market.
