Dogecoin surged over 15% to reach just past 10 cents during Tuesday’s Asian morning session, marking the strongest performance among primary digital tokens based on CoinDesk figures.
Bitcoin maintained a level slightly above $85,600, remaining stable over the preceding hour following a roughly 5% gain across a 24-hour window. The vast majority of that price movement stemmed from traders being compelled to exit bearish positions.
According to CoinGlass data, slightly more than $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency derivatives were liquidated over the last day, with short sellers accounting for $844 million, or 82% of that total. Approximately 135,000 individual accounts were liquidated.
A short position yields profits when asset valuations drop. Market participants who leverage borrowed funds to enter these trades must maintain collateral, and if values climb high enough that their posted margin fails to cover mounting deficits, the platform automatically purchases the asset back on their behalf. This compulsory buying drives the price upward once more, pushing the subsequent bracket of short trades past their critical thresholds.
Bitcoin represented approximately $608 million of the daily aggregate, while ether contributed $181 million. The single largest liquidation event involved a nearly $21 million bitcoin contract on the Hyperliquid platform.
XRP advanced by 7% approaching $1.52, and SOL gained 5% to trade just under $117. Ether climbed 3% toward nearly $2,740, whereas BNB and TRX each registered gains ranging between 1% and 2%. ZEC stood as the sole major digital asset to decline, dropping 4% to sit just above $1,450.
Liquidations throughout the past hour dropped below $11 million, shrinking significantly from the rate of over $300 million per hour observed during Monday’s peak volatility, which indicates that any future upward push will rely on genuine buyers rather than squeezed sellers.
AI trade roars back
Meanwhile, traditional equities maintained a solid trajectory throughout the Asian trading hours.
The MSCI Asia Pacific index climbed nearly 1%, securing its fifth consecutive daily advance, propelled by major chip manufacturers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix tracking the previous day’s surge in American semiconductor equities. South Korea’s Kospi index grew by 2%, and Taiwan’s main benchmark reached a new intraday high.
Artificial intelligence serves as the primary catalyst. Wall Street’s upward momentum followed early indicators of success regarding Meta Platforms’ new AI assistant, alongside AMD pacing toward a $1 trillion market valuation.
Meta Platforms launched Muse, an artificial intelligence agent integrated across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, roughly two weeks ago, and it has since surpassed ChatGPT to capture the position of the leading free application on Apple’s U.S. App Store. Apptopia tracking statistics reveal that the utility has accumulated nearly 3 million global installations and secured about 40% higher iOS download volumes in the United States and Canada than ChatGPT achieved during its initial 12 days on mobile platforms.
Every inquiry handled by an AI assistant utilizes server infrastructure, and semiconductor equities surged on the expectation that widespread adoption of these tools will drive substantially higher hardware demand.
AMD, where Meta accounts for roughly 5% of total revenue, climbed as much as 10% on Monday, briefly crossing the $1 trillion capitalization threshold for the first time. Intel advanced by up to 12% and Arm rose 14%, driving the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up by more than 4% through its fifth straight daily increase.
In other developments, Alibaba announced on Tuesday the rollout of what it terms China’s most powerful AI chip, an accelerator engineered to challenge Nvidia, lifting its Hong Kong equities higher alongside Tencent, which unveiled a fresh image generation algorithm.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/09/22/dogecoin-leads-market-rebound-with-15-pump-bitcoin-steady-above-usd85-000.
