$ETH leverage took the hit, not $BTC
The late-Thursday flush wiped out about $1.19B in positions over 24 hours, and more than $1B of that was longs. The interesting part is who paid.
ETH liquidations came to roughly $356M vs about $298M for BTC, even though BTC's market value is more than five times ETH's. Scaled by size, that is about $1.2M liquidated per $1B of market cap for ETH vs about $180K for BTC, around six times the damage. ETH dropped 3%+ to near $2,490 while BTC lost about 1%.
My read: ETH positioning was far more crowded on leverage. BTC had been ranging between $83K and $87K all week, traders stacked leverage into that range, and when it broke (Fed minutes leaning toward another hike, oil up on Iran headlines) the more leveraged book unwound hardest. The single biggest wipeout was a ~$20M ETH position on Hyperliquid.
Since then shorts are paying for the bounce: BTC is back near $82K, and about 78% of the ~$25M liquidated in the following four hours came from bears.
Worth remembering for context: tomorrow is one year since Oct 10, 2025, when a record $19B was liquidated in one day, roughly 16x this flush. Leverage resets like this one are much smaller, but they show where the crowding is.
Not financial advice. Data: CoinDesk citing CoinGlass, Oct 9 2026.
The late-Thursday flush wiped out about $1.19B in positions over 24 hours, and more than $1B of that was longs. The interesting part is who paid.
ETH liquidations came to roughly $356M vs about $298M for BTC, even though BTC's market value is more than five times ETH's. Scaled by size, that is about $1.2M liquidated per $1B of market cap for ETH vs about $180K for BTC, around six times the damage. ETH dropped 3%+ to near $2,490 while BTC lost about 1%.
My read: ETH positioning was far more crowded on leverage. BTC had been ranging between $83K and $87K all week, traders stacked leverage into that range, and when it broke (Fed minutes leaning toward another hike, oil up on Iran headlines) the more leveraged book unwound hardest. The single biggest wipeout was a ~$20M ETH position on Hyperliquid.
Since then shorts are paying for the bounce: BTC is back near $82K, and about 78% of the ~$25M liquidated in the following four hours came from bears.
Worth remembering for context: tomorrow is one year since Oct 10, 2025, when a record $19B was liquidated in one day, roughly 16x this flush. Leverage resets like this one are much smaller, but they show where the crowding is.
Not financial advice. Data: CoinDesk citing CoinGlass, Oct 9 2026.