Leverage builds up in large amounts from the start, and the market nearly follows the same script: first stack positions, then look for a needle, and then use liquidations to wipe out the excess multiples. In the past year, it happened twice already—now we’re at the doorstep of the third time.

On October 3, Coinglass’ overall market top bar: 24-hour trading volume was $211.34 billion, up only 0.81% from the previous day. Open interest was $150.39 billion, down 2.22%. Liquidations were $429 million, up 37.48%. The long/short ratio was 49.17% versus 50.83%. Total market cap is about $2.88 trillion, with open interest making up roughly 5.2%. Trading is still ongoing, but positions are starting to unwind and liquidations are starting to accelerate—this is usually how the first page of the script looks.

The first time was in October 2025. On October 7, the number of open interest in major venues was about $235.9 billion. Bitcoin futures open interest stood above $90 billion, and the spot market had just set a high of roughly $126,000. After the positions were stacked up, a single needle-like move came down on October 10–11: CoinGlass reported total liquidations over 24 hours of about $19.3 billion—around 1.6 million accounts—and longs were about $16.7 billion. Perpetual open interest fell from about $217 billion to $123 billion, a reduction of about 40%. Market makers estimated real liquidations were higher, because exchanges don’t report every single order instantly. By year-end, positions only returned to around $145 billion.

The second time was in February 2026. After clearing in October, leverage piled back up again. In the early hours of February 1, support was lost and BTC dipped to about $75,720. AiCoin recorded about $2.37 billion in liquidations over a 12-hour report period, longs about $2.22 billion, and shorts about $150 million. On the same day, different reporting methods gave $2.2 billion to $2.56 billion for the 24-hour figure; the direction was consistent—more than 90% were longs. Over the following few weeks, Bitcoin futures open interest fell by about 20%, and the price was driven from above $80,000 down to just over $60,000. There was no exchange “meltdown.” What was cleared was this layer of positioning.

Cleared, then piled on again. On September 21, shorts were squeezed, and total market positions rose in one day to about $156 billion. On October 3, it was back to $150.4 billion—right along the platform level after the liquidation. Bitcoin perps were about $36.1 billion, and Ethereum across the entire network was about $35.3 billion. Accounts were nearly split 50/50: big holders’ positions were about 2x, while alt accounts were relatively more long-biased. On October 1, when you look at the tracked market, the vast majority of participants were still paying funding fees as longs.

It isn’t the same price three times—it’s the same sequence. Positions first come to the high zone; the funding rate tells you who is paying to carry the trades. Then a single needle hits the crowded side, and liquidation knocks open interest down by a slice—up to 40%. In October 2025, longs were the ones hit, and positions dropped by 40%. In February 2026, it was still longs being hit, and positions dropped by about 20%. On September 21, shorts were hit first—so positions didn’t fall; they actually rose. The fuel was left behind until now.

This page is already open: positions down 2.22% over the past 24 hours, liquidations up 37% (liquidations increased). This step is still minor. The previous two rounds of cleanup: single-day liquidations were lifted from a few hundred million to around 2 billion, and positions kept falling continuously. Before it dropped to that level, you could only say the fuel was there—you couldn’t say which day the ignition would happen. After ignition, the crowded side needs to run away #BTC走势分析 #btc70k #永续 #套利新天地 #ETH .