• Ethereum led 24-hour crypto liquidations at $128.92 million, about 46% of the total.

• Liquidations across the top 20 contracts totaled $280.06 million as of 06:56 UTC September 15.

• Short liquidations made up 68.67% of the total, roughly 2.2 times long liquidations.

Ethereum Takes 46% of the Wipeout

Ethereum (ETH) traders absorbed the single largest share of the crypto market's forced deleveraging over the past 24 hours. Aggregate Bitcoin-market liquidation data shows approximately $128.92 million in ETH positions were cleared — about 46% of the $280.06 million wiped out across the top 20 contracts, a share out of all proportion to any single asset's footprint in the futures complex. Within the Ethereum figure itself, short liquidations accounted for $91.56 million, roughly 71% of the asset's total, meaning borrowed-and-sold ETH was the side being forcibly closed. A liquidation occurs when an exchange automatically shuts a leveraged position once its margin falls below the maintenance threshold, so these are mechanical exits, not discretionary selling. The market-wide skew told the same story: of the full $280.06 million, $192.30 million came from short liquidations against $87.76 million from longs — a 2.2-to-1 imbalance, with shorts representing 68.67% of everything cleared. That pattern points to a short squeeze, where traders betting on lower prices are forced to buy back, adding upward pressure even as spot drifts lower. The snapshot was compiled as of 06:56 UTC on September 15 and covers only the top 20 liquidated instruments, so the true cross-market total is likely higher. At that timestamp, Bitcoin (BTC) traded near $77,213, down 0.47% on the day, while ETH changed hands around $2,482, 1.30% lower — mild spot weakness against a heavily one-sided derivatives flush.

Bitcoin, Zcash and the Outliers

The asset-by-asset breakdown confirmed Ethereum's lead. Bitcoin recorded the second-largest total at $87.72 million, and like ETH it skewed heavily toward shorts — 75% of BTC's cleared positions were short. XRP followed at $13.98 million with 63% short, then Zcash (ZEC) at $13.47 million, where the concentration was the sharpest among major assets: 83% of ZEC liquidations were shorts. Solana (SOL) posted $11.16 million with a comparatively balanced 54% short share. Spot tape over the same window was mixed — SOL slipped 0.66%, XRP gained 0.98%, HYPE fell 0.81% and ZEC added 0.58% — underlining that the flush was leverage-driven rather than a uniform selloff. Notably, the top-20 table extended beyond digital assets: SanDisk-tied contracts logged $5.60 million in liquidations, 64% long; gold (XAU) saw $5.39 million, 90% of it long; and SK Hynix contracts cleared $2.01 million with 87% long. That long-side skew in traditional instruments, set against the short-side wipeout in crypto, shows how differently leverage was positioned across the two markets in the same hours. The aggregation draws on a top-20 instrument and exchange table rather than total market capitalization, with pricing referenced to CoinMarketCap quotes; because exchanges and products compute liquidations differently, figures can diverge from other trackers. By our latest live snapshot, BTC spot had eased to roughly $76,912 and ETH to about $2,475 — a modest continuation of the drift that accompanied the flush, not a renewed cascade.

Short Skew Meets Its Denominator

The load-bearing record here is the aggregate liquidation dataset itself — forced closures compiled directly across exchanges and venues — which states the totals as raw figures rather than analyst estimates. COINOTAG's read: this was a deleveraging event, not a conviction-driven selloff. Spot holders pursuing HODL strategies were untouched; only leveraged books were reset. And the proportion is what matters most: about 46% of a $280.06 million total sat on one asset, Ethereum, while roughly two-thirds of that same total was shorts paying for their position. If funding rates normalize and open interest holds flat, the squeeze dynamics behind those numbers should fade; a fresh leg lower would flip the skew back toward longs.