The BTC price surged 15% on Monday, rising from the $34.5K level to hit highs of $39,681. Although the bulls are yet to break above the $40K resistance, market participants who have endured months of muted price action now have renewed hope that the bull market is still on.

The week is off to an excellent start for bulls, who managed to propel the BTC price to levels not seen since June 16. The uptick kicked off slowly in the past week after Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey praised crypto during “The ₿ Word” conference.”

Further bullish momentum came from reports that Amazon was looking to hire a blockchain and crypto expert. The news stirred questions among crypto enthusiasts about whether the retail giant was finally ready to accept bitcoin payments.

Those bullish events saw bitcoin first surmount the $34,500 level on Friday last week before shooting up toward $40K in a dramatic weekend rally that has made headlines worldwide.

Over-leveraged Shorts Fuel BTC Price Pump

Market participants who had placed bets on the price of BTC falling further were caught unawares by bitcoin’s sharp reversal to the upside. As a result, traders were left scrambling to exit their short positions, a scenario that fuelled the BTC price rally.

As per data from crypto monitoring site Bybt, $1.1 billion in shorts were liquidated over the past 24 hours as traders rushed to exit over-leveraged positions to cut losses. Analyst William Clemente III also highlighted data from Glassnode, which shows over $100M of shorts were liquidated in 10 minutes.

With so many bears pushed out of the market and fundamentals looking strong, BTC prices could be well poised to retest new resistance levels in the near term. 

What’s more, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index shows that market sentiment is calm after the rally toward $40K. That indicator is bullish for bitcoin, as it signals increased fear rather than greed continues to dominate investor sentiment. 

Therefore, market participants are less likely to spark a sell-off by taking profits off the table as the BTC price increases in the coming days. 

Altcoin Benefit from the Bitcoin Price Uptick

Analyst Michaël van de Poppe, who had predicted BTC prices to rise higher toward $42K, noted that the intensity of the current rally was bound to boost altcoins as well.

“After such a move of Bitcoin, altcoins will follow suit. Some are doing great in their BTC pairs, as Cardano and Ethereum are bouncing nicely. Great!” the analyst tweeted.

Indeed, the remarkable overnight run-up in BTC markets has managed to spark a resurgence in the broader crypto space. As a result, most top-fifty altcoins now show some signs of life after weeks of bearish drawdowns.

ETH, the world’s second-largest crypto, is up nearly 10%, while LINK, DOGE, and UNI have logged double-digit gains. Other top gainers include ADA, XRP, BNB, and XLM, which have accumulated 6-9% gains over the last 24 hours.