Bitcoin weekend blip wiped out $250M in over leveraged long traders while open interest weakens

Bitcoin’s rally squeezed short sellers last the week. By Sunday, the reversal was hitting leveraged longs.

Bitcoin liquidations hit leveraged longs

At about 07:00 UTC on Aug. 23, CoinGlass showed $101.39 million of crypto long positions liquidated over four hours, almost 86% of the window’s $118.13 million total. The 24-hour view put long liquidations at $250.57 million out of $339.73 million.

Bitcoin contributed $38.66 million of the four-hour long liquidations and $55.82 million over 24 hours. At the time, BTC traded near $76,088, down about 1.8% over the preceding day after approaching $80,000 during the earlier rally. Since then, Bitcoin has recovered slightly to near $77,300.

The liquidation mix confirms a sharp change in who was being forced out. The positioning data, however, showed leverage shrinking during the pullback.

Open interest falls during the pullback

CoinGlass placed aggregate Bitcoin futures open interest near $54.54 billion, down 2.65% over 24 hours. Major perpetual funding rates were generally near the 0.01% baseline, while the aggregate account long-short ratio stood at 0.9238. A market already reloading with crowded longs would typically show expanding open interest and richer funding; this capture showed restrained positioning on both measures.