The crypto derivatives market just issued a brutal warning to over-leveraged traders. In the last 24 hours, approximately $117 million in long positions were liquidated, catching thousands of bullish traders completely off guard.
According to data from Coinglass and futures trackers, total liquidations hit $133 million to $154 million in the window between October 25 and 26. Long positions made up 70% to 80% of that total. That means roughly $80 million to $106 million in bets that prices would go up were forcibly closed. The data shows 62,000+ traders were affected.
Ethereum led the losses. ETH long liquidations accounted for $39 million to $54 million, outpacing Bitcoin. BTC long liquidations were $22 million to $32 million. The single largest wipeout was a $7 million ETH long on Binance. Binance alone processed over $73 million of the liquidations, or about 60% of the total volume.
Most of the damage happened in perpetual futures contracts. These are high-leverage contracts with no expiry date. When price drifts slightly against you and your margin is low, the exchange automatically liquidates you. That is exactly what happened.
What is surprising is there was no major crash. Bitcoin held around $80,300 and Ethereum around $2,327. There was no hack, no regulatory news. Traders were simply too greedy and left no room for a small pullback. When everyone is long, even a 2% dip can trigger a $117 million domino effect.