$380 million of bets wiped out in under an hour. Bitcoin is back above $80K and the 'it's going to zero' guys got cooked.

On Tuesday, Bitcoin hit a seven-week low of about $75,600.

By Thursday, it was back above $80,000.

And somewhere in between, traders who’d bet on it falling lost about $380 million in under an hour. Not slowly. In under an hour. Faster than a Karachi rickshaw clears a signal.

What happened

3 November: the US held its midterm elections. Bitcoin dipped to around $75,600 while everyone waited.
Results: Democrats swept the midterms. Markets read that as less uncertainty, and some traders expect it to help end the Iran conflict, which could mean cheaper oil and less inflation.
US stocks bounced about 1.6%, the dollar weakened and oil fell. Risky stuff got bought, and Bitcoin is risky stuff.
Bitcoin ETFs took in about $75 million on 4 November, after losing about $1.16 billion over the three days before.
5 November: Bitcoin traded around $80,200, up about 2% in a day.

Then the fun part.

The short squeeze, explained like you’re at a chai dhaba

Some traders didn’t just think Bitcoin would fall. They bet on it, with borrowed money. That’s called going short.

Here’s the chain reaction:

Bitcoin ticks up a bit.
The most borrowed-up shorts get force-closed.
Closing a short means buying Bitcoin. So the price goes up more.
That knocks out the next row of shorts. Who also have to buy.
Repeat until everyone’s out or the shorts run dry.

It’s like dominoes, except every domino is somebody’s savings.

The scale

About $378–380 million of short bets were liquidated in under an hour, according to crypto.news and The Sunday Guardian. In rupees, that’s roughly Rs 10,600 crore. Gone in less time than it takes to watch one Pakistan innings collapse.

Should you be excited?

Calm down, bhai. Look at the bigger picture:

Bitcoin is still about 36% below its record of $126,198 from October 2025.
It’s down about 23% from a year ago, according to Fortune’s price tracker.
One bounce isn’t a trend. CryptoQuant analysts have warned the correction might not be over.

The actual lesson: leverage eats people

Every time this happens, it’s the leverage that does the damage, not the price move. Bitcoin moved about 3%. People still got wiped out, because they’d borrowed 20x, 50x, even 100x.

On 50x leverage, a 2% move the wrong way can wipe your deposit to zero.

If someone in your family WhatsApp is posting “futures trading” screenshots with big green numbers, ask to see the red ones too. 👀

The Pakistan angle 🇵🇰

Futures trading isn’t licensed here yet. PVARA has given NOCs to Binance and HTX to start the licence process. A NOC is not a licence, and nothing has been approved for leverage trading for Pakistani users.
“100x” apps are a red flag. Many of the binary options and “trading” apps the SECP warns about push sky-high leverage. Read our list of crypto experts to avoid.
If you hold, you don’t get liquidated. Someone who just owns Bitcoin, with no borrowed money, can’t get force-closed. They just have to sit through the dips.

The market doesn’t need to go to zero to wipe you out. With 50x leverage, it only needs to go 2% the wrong way.

Sources: crypto.news on Bitcoin’s move above $80K and ETF flows (5 Nov 2026); Fortune’s daily Bitcoin price report (5 Nov 2026); The Sunday Guardian on the midterm-driven bounce and liquidations (5 Nov 2026); Trading Economics on markets after the midterms (6 Nov 2026). Rupee figure uses about Rs 280 per dollar. Not financial advice.