Leveraged bets against bitcoin (BTC) lost over $150 million in the past 24 hours as prices rallied 10% for the biggest daily gain since October, spurring calls for a firm new bull market.

BTC briefly topped the $57,000 level early Tuesday to reach its highest price since November 2021 on the back of multiple catalysts, such as rising volumes on spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) and institutional buying.

Covering shorts may have contributed to the asset’s strength since the start of this week. Data from CoinGlass show short bets have lost over $180 million since Sunday. Still, open interest jumped from $48 billion to nearly $54 billion – showing a rise in bullish bets as traders expected volatility.

Liquidation is when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a margin shortfall. It happens when a trader lacks sufficient funds to keep the trade open.

Large liquidations can signal the local top or bottom of a steep price move, which may allow traders to position themselves accordingly.

The bitcoin bump buoyed the broader crypto market. Ether (ETH), Solana’s SOL and Cardano’s ADA rose 8% in the past 24 hours, while Stacks (STX) – a bitcoin layer-2 token – spiked over 25%.

Market observers said bitcoin is firmly in a “new bull market” and could see a significant upside as the anticipated halving event approaches.

“Bitcoin’s decisive rally signals the de facto start of a new bull market,” said Alex Adelman, founder at Lolli, in an email to CoinDesk. “Major price movements are being driven by sheer positive market sentiment and persistent bitcoin ETF inflows, which reached new daily highs with the day’s rally.”

“With the bitcoin halving just over a month away, which historically brings price increases, tremendous upside lies ahead for bitcoin,” Adelman added.

Halving is part of the Bitcoin network’s code to reduce inflationary pressure on the cryptocurrency and will cut the rewards in half for successfully mining a bitcoin block. This makes obtaining or mining new bitcoin much harder and has historically preceded bull runs.