Ether longs take the brunt of crypto's $1 billion liquidation flush

Crypto's leveraged traders had a rough October 8. More than $1 billion in positions were forcibly closed across the market within 24 hours.

Ether took the worst of it. CoinDesk reported that ether bets were wiped out at six times Bitcoin's rate during the flush, and some estimates put ETH liquidations near $356 million.

Estimates of ether liquidations vary. They run from approximately $318 million to $335 million, with some tallies climbing toward $356 million.

Bitcoin's figure landed between roughly $215 million and $300 million over the same window.

The losses were overwhelmingly one-sided. Long positions, meaning bets that prices would rise, made up 85% to 95% of total liquidations across the market.

The pain was widespread. Somewhere between 100,000 and 190,000 traders were affected during peak trading periods.

The activity was concentrated on Binance, Bybit, OKX and Hyperliquid. Binance captured more than 50% of ETH trading volume in some reports.

In derivatives trading, traders post a slice of collateral to control a much larger position. If prices move against them far enough, the exchange closes the position automatically to cover the loan.

Those forced closures turn into market sell orders. Selling pushes prices lower, which triggers the next tier of liquidations, which pushes prices lower again.