Wednesday was an absolute bloodbath for leveraged crypto traders, with over $1.19 billion in positions getting liquidated across the market. The single biggest casualty was a $29.1 million Ethereum long position on Hyperliquid that got completely demolished when prices tanked.
What makes this liquidation spree particularly brutal is that nearly 90% of the wiped-out positions were long trades, meaning traders were betting on prices going up. Over 260,000 people lost money, which shows just how crowded the bullish side of the trade had become.
Ethereum traders took the worst beating overall, with $448 million in liquidations. Bitcoin wasn’t far behind at $278 million, and even smaller coins like Solana, XRP, BNB, and Dogecoin saw tens of millions get flushed out. When you see numbers like that across the board, it usually means people were way too leveraged.
The really interesting part is how much action happened on Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange that operates completely on-chain without any KYC requirements. They saw $281 million in liquidations, which put them ahead of Binance at $243 million. Bybit still handled the most at $311 million, but for a relatively new decentralized platform, Hyperliquid’s numbers are pretty wild.
What this shows is that traders are getting increasingly comfortable taking massive risks on decentralized platforms where there’s basically no regulatory oversight. A 97% long bias on Hyperliquid means people were betting almost exclusively on prices going up, which made them sitting ducks when the market turned.
Conclusion
This liquidation wave highlights the dangers of extreme leverage and blind optimism, showing how overconfident traders, especially on decentralized platforms like Hyperliquid, can quickly get wiped out when markets suddenly shift.
Also Read: Bitcoin Price Falls
