The biggest casualty of this sell-off wasn’t Bitcoin—it was Ethereum (
$ETH ).
During the Asian session on October 15, CoinDesk’s data stood out:
$BTC and Ethereum saw a combined total of about $483 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours. Ethereum alone accounted for about $286 million, compared with Bitcoin’s roughly $197 million. With a much smaller futures market, Ethereum bore nearly 60% of the forced liquidations.
The trigger was September’s hotter-than-expected CPI: 3.7% year over year, above the forecast of 3.6%. Binance liquidated more than $106 million in Ethereum long positions in just one hour. CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said it was the exchange’s largest single-hour liquidation of ETH longs in nearly six months. He also highlighted a structural issue: Ethereum’s futures trading volume is about nine times its spot volume, meaning leverage has piled up too high. Any macro-driven downturn could trigger a cascade of liquidations.
Why ETH in particular? Three factors converged. First, longs were overcrowded: ahead of the CPI release, everyone was betting on a “positive-data rally,” piling into the same side of the trade. Second, liquidity was thinner around key price levels. Once $2,500 broke, the price slid straight to around $2,350, a drop of about 6%—twice Bitcoin’s decline. Third, Ethereum’s spot, staking, and DeFi collateral layers are stacked on top of one another, so a blowup at one layer can spread to the next. According to CoinGlass, total liquidations across the crypto market were about $942 million over 24 hours, 92% of them from long positions. In the hour around 10:35 a.m. Beijing time, market-wide liquidations totaled $476 million, 95% of them longs, with Binance alone accounting for 53.7%.
What’s the takeaway? The liquidation wave isn’t all bad news: 92% of crowded long positions were forcibly cleared out, leaving a cleaner market structure. But it’s also a reminder that Ethereum is a natural amplifier relative to Bitcoin—when direction is unclear, its volatility can be several times higher.
Keep an eye on two things next: tonight’s 8:30 p.m. Beijing time triple release of PPI, retail sales, and initial jobless claims, and the FOMC meeting on October 27–28. If Ethereum’s funding rates and open interest reset and recover, a short-term rebound is possible. Otherwise, it could signal that institutions are continuing to pull back—Ethereum spot ETFs saw another $19.7 million in net outflows on October 14, bringing outflows since the start of October to about $715 million.
#EtherTook60%OfCryptoLiquidations
#ETH #Liquidations
This is not investment advice. DYOR; trading involves risk.