Cryptocurrency markets lurched into a forced-selling cascade on Thursday, with roughly $942.1 million in leveraged positions liquidated over 24 hours, according to Coinglass. Long positions accounted for $863.3 million, or 91.6% of the total, as Bitcoin traded near $81,000, down about 3%, while Ether fell more than 5% to around $2,350.
Ether traders suffered the heaviest single-coin losses, with liquidations estimated between $283 million and $286 million. Bitcoin contracts registered about $197 million in forced closes. XRP and Solana both dropped roughly 5%, Dogecoin slid about 6%, and total crypto market capitalization declined nearly 5% to $2.76 trillion. Binance handled 53.7% of all liquidations, including the largest single order: a $12.03 million BTCUSDT long closed at $80,208.96.
The immediate trigger included uncertainty over the Federal Reserve's next interest rate decision, compounded by a 6% drop in South Korea's KOSPI index driven by Samsung and SK Hynix selloffs. Those macro jitters rippled into crypto derivatives markets already crowded with bullish leverage. At 40x leverage, liquidation sits only about 1.7% from entry; at 50x, roughly 2% separates profit from total loss. As forced market sells hit the order book, they pushed prices lower, tripping the next cluster of underwater positions.
The event follows a repeated 2026 pattern. In October 2025, Bitcoin plunged from about $122,000 to $105,000, triggering roughly $19 billion in liquidations and collapsing perpetual futures open interest by 43% in a single day. January 2026 saw more than $1.08 billion in losses for 182,000 traders, and 'Black Sunday II' forced roughly $2.2 billion in closures within 24 hours. June brought another cascade, with Bitcoin sliding from about $67,000 to $59,100 in 48 hours. Each time, open interest rebuilt and funding rates stayed positive, setting the fuse for the next unwind.
Coinglass recorded $489.4 million in liquidations in the most recent hour, more than half the 24-hour total. Even contracts tied to traditional assets were hit: silver positions lost $22.1 million and gold positions $13.3 million. The cascade is not simply a price crash but a mechanical clearing of excess leverage, with forced sales feeding further forced sales until the most crowded long positions are flushed out.
