Short sellers saw a world of pain as $Bitcoin(BTC.CC)$ surged above $44,000 on Tuesday, gaining 15% in the last 24 hours.

What Happened: According to data from CoinGlass, crypto liquidations over a 24-hour period exceeded $325 million at the time of writing.

A total of 68,736 traders were liquidated, with the majority being in short positions or betting on lower prices.

The single largest liquidation order took place on Binance with a $Theta Token(THETA.CC)$/ USDT trading pair, where the trader lost $11.08 million in a single trade. THETA is up an impressive 19% in the last 24 hours.

Over 81% of traders liquidated in the last day across crypto exchanges were in short positions. Crypto exchange OKX saw the largest number of liquidations, with $119.36 million shorts liquidated and $16 million long positions liquidated.

Total BTC liquidations in the last day exceeded $158.26 million, followed by $Ethereum(ETH.CC)$ which saw $63 million liquidated. $Terra(LUNA.CC)$ saw $15.43 million in liquidations after rising 22.35% over the last day.

"There are a lot of unknowns so in this environment. Good traders adapt," commented popular crypto analyst Pentoshi on Twitter.

"Want to state, March is a month of massive variables. So I think day to day approach is best. There is a lot going on in the world right now. It's anyones guess. I'm leaning towards yearly open still, but after that it's wait and see," the analyst told his over 522,000 followers.