Bitcoin and Ethereum Whipsaw in Both Directions as $286 Million in Leveraged Positions Liquidated
0xBroomberg
Crypto prices ended a 24-hour window virtually unchanged, yet violent two-way swings wiped out $286 million in leveraged positions across 87,000 traders — with the Fed decision window and equity perpetual contracts on crypto exchanges both amplifying the damage.
Prices went nowhere — so where did the money go?
Bitcoin closed at roughly $63,900, trading in a sub-2% range; Ethereum settled near $1,900 in a similarly tight band.
But the market whipsawed — up, down, back up — sweeping both sides. This means → longs lost about $186 million and shorts lost about $100 million, even though the net price move was near zero.
In plain terms = the price drew a circle back to its starting point, but every leveraged position inside that circle got blown up — 87,294 traders were forcibly liquidated.
What happened around the Fed decision?
In the 12 hours bracketing the rate decision, $188 million was liquidated — nearly two-thirds of the full-day total.
Longs bore roughly $130 million of that, close to 70%. This means → a large number of traders had bet on a bullish outcome, added leverage beforehand, and were swept out by the post-decision volatility.
Ethereum logged the largest single-asset liquidation at about $58 million, mostly longs. The single largest individual liquidation was a $2.9 million Bitcoin position on Binance.
Why did equity perpetual contracts blow up too?
Equity perpetual contracts — instruments on crypto exchanges that let traders take leveraged bets on traditional stocks — saw a parallel wave of liquidations.
SanDisk-linked positions were liquidated for roughly $19 million, Micron for $10 million, SK Hynix for $7 million, and the leveraged semiconductor ETF SOXL for $7 million — nearly all longs.
These traders were betting on an AI-storage rally, but SK Hynix posted a 557% profit surge that still missed expectations; its stock fell 17% in a single session. In plain terms = strong earnings don't guarantee a price rise — the gap versus expectations is what sets the direction.
Is this an isolated event or a trend signal?
This is the second time this week equity perpetuals caused major losses. On Monday, a trade in thinly-liquid Korean pre-market hours crashed the SK Hynix contract on Trade.xyz by 19%, triggering roughly $60 million in liquidations; the exchange has since pledged to compensate affected users.
Micron's long-to-short liquidation ratio ran about 7:1; SanDisk's about 2:1 — overwhelmingly one-directional. This reflects how concentrated and one-sided leveraged exposure to traditional equities has become on crypto platforms.
This means → the risk-transmission path between crypto derivatives and traditional equities is getting shorter and more direct — volatility in one market can now trigger liquidations in the other almost instantly.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.