Ether Traders Took Six Times the Pain in Crypto's $1.1 Billion Liquidation Flush
Roughly $1.1 billion in crypto positions were wiped out in 24 hours as bitcoin slid to $80,350 — the biggest daily flush since Aug. 21.
Longs did almost all the bleeding
Of Thursday's $1.09 billion in liquidations, $1.05 billion came from longs, the traders betting on higher prices. Shorts barely got touched. Bitcoin printed $80,350 on Bitstamp, its lowest level since Sept. 18, before recovering to around $82,500. That $82,500 zone has held as support since early July, so keeping it matters for the bullish case.
Ether got hit six times harder
Ether traders lost about $356 million, more than bitcoin's $298 million, even though ether's market value is less than one-fifth as large. Measured per dollar of market value, that is roughly $1.2 million in liquidations for every $1 billion of ether, against about $180,000 for bitcoin. The single largest wipeout was a nearly $20 million ether position on Hyperliquid. Ether fell more than 3% to about $2,490 while bitcoin shed about 1%.
- Ether: $356 million
- Bitcoin: $298 million
- Solana: $71 million
- XRP: $34 million
- NEAR: $25 million
55,600 BTC hit exchanges at a loss
Wallets that held bitcoin for six months or less moved 55,600 BTC to exchanges at a loss on Thursday, according to CryptoQuant data. That is heavier loss-taking than on June 26, when bitcoin traded near $59,300. This time it was above $81,000, a gap of more than 36%. Sending coins to an exchange is not the same as selling them, and historically this kind of aggressive capitulation has coincided with weaker holders getting flushed out before a recovery.
Why it matters
Liquidations are self-feeding. Forced closes sell into an already falling market and push the next leveraged position over the edge. Traders had been stacking leverage all week while bitcoin chopped between $83,000 and $87,000, which left plenty of positions to knock over once that range broke. CoinGlass counted $1.09 billion across the 24 hours to Friday morning, while a wider market tally put the total at $1.19 billion. The takeaway for anyone trading with leverage: if a 3% move can liquidate you, the position is too big.