Bitcoin soared to $68,310.0 (+5.46%), Ethereum broke through the psychological $2,000 mark, and Solana climbed 6.50% to $81.994, triggering a massive $1.22 billion cascade of short-position liquidations across the crypto market in just one hour, according to CoinGlass.
AI down Bitcoin up (again)
— Jeff Park (@dgt10011) August 19, 2026
A sudden rotation of capital from the technology sector into crypto assets triggered a powerful move. Solana adviser Jeff Park succinctly described this market shift with the phrase "AI down Bitcoin up (again)," reacting to the rally by arguing that local weakness in the artificial intelligence sector is directly clearing the way for cryptocurrencies to rise.
Domino effect: How the short squeeze linked AI and Bitcoin #
This powerful surge caught the bears off guard. Sellers betting on a decline were simply washed away: over the past 24 hours, exchanges forcibly closed the positions of 111,060 traders worth $1.46 billion.
However, the most severe blow came during that extraordinary hour, when trading systems liquidated $1.22 billion in short positions at once.
Bitcoin accounted for $678.11 million in liquidations, Ethereum for $423.44 million, while Solana sellers lost $37.97 million. This mass stop-out acted as rocket fuel: exchanges began forcibly buying back short sellers' positions, causing prices to rise vertically.
While Park is highlighting the short-term rotation of capital, Will Clemente is looking at the situation more deeply and believes that AI and Bitcoin are actually reinforcing each other. In his view, "Bitcoin benefits from AI" because, to support the massive infrastructure boom surrounding neural networks, governments are being forced to artificially contain bond market volatility through "volatility suppression."
This fuels hidden inflation, accelerates the depreciation of fiat currencies and, over the long term, turns Bitcoin into the primary safety valve for investors.
This fundamental strength of the crypto market is also supported by Fundstrat's Tom Lee. He fully agreed with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, emphasizing that the industry is on the verge of a massive process that will effectively absorb the old system: "we are in the early innings of a global tokenization supercycle."
According to Lee, moving traditional finance onto blockchain rails will become a key structural driver of long-term crypto growth, alongside the development of autonomous AI agents.