Crypto Liquidations Explained: Why Ethereum Was Hit Harder Than Bitcoin in the $1.19B Flush

Overview

The selloff that began late on October 8 and ran into the early hours of October 9 wiped out roughly $1.19 billion of leveraged crypto positions in 24 hours. According to CoinDesk’s account of the flush,Ethereum positions accounted for about $356 million againstBitcoin‘s $298 million, even though Ether’s market value is less than a fifth of Bitcoin’s. Adjusted for market capitalization, roughly $1.2 million was liquidated per $1 billion of Ether’s market value, against about $180,000 for Bitcoin, a gap of about six times.

The number worth dissecting is that multiple, not the headline total. One macro shock, one time window, two assets, and a sixfold difference in damage means the story is not about how far prices fell. It is about where leverage had accumulated. For anyone holding a position, this dataset answers a more practical question than why the market dropped: whether their own exposure would become part of the forced selling the next time a move of this size arrives.

Key Takeaways

Longs absorbed nearly all of it. Coinglass data puts the total at $1.191 billion, of which $1.056 billion was long liquidations against just $135 million of shorts, across 192,576 traders.