Over the past 24 hours, bitcoin briefly surged to a year-to-date high of over $45,800, propelled by the increasing anticipation that regulatory approval for U.S.-based spot bitcoin ETFs could be granted soon.

The largest digital asset by market cap has since posted a slight retrace to change hands for $45,353 at 7:00 a.m. ET. Major altcoins such as solana, the native token of the Solana network, and ether also posted daily gains of 10% and 4% respectively, according to The Block's Prices Page.

The spike in prices over the past day led to a substantial liquidation of short positions on centralized exchanges. The volatility resulted in the liquidations of more than $81 million in bitcoin positions, with the majority ($73.2 million) being shorts.