Crypto’s late-Thursday selloff delivered a familiar lesson with an expensive invoice: leverage can turn a modest price move into a very large cleanup. About $1.19 billion in derivatives positions were liquidated over 24 hours, and Ether absorbed more damage than Bitcoin despite having a much smaller market value.
The snapshot, reported early Friday, October 9, showed roughly $356 million in ETH liquidations against $298 million for BTC. More than $1 billion of the market-wide total came from longs. This was primarily a wipeout of traders betting on higher prices, not an evenly balanced struggle between bulls and bears.
Ether’s smaller size made the damage stand out
According to CoinDesk’s report, Ether’s liquidations amounted to roughly $1.2 million for every $1 billion of market value, compared with about $180,000 for Bitcoin. On that basis, ETH took roughly six times the damage. Ether fell more than 3% to approximately $2,490 in the report’s market snapshot, while Bitcoin lost about 1%.
That comparison needs a little care. It measures liquidations relative to each asset’s market capitalization, not the probability that an individual ETH trader will be liquidated. It also does not establish that Ether’s network or spot holders suffered six times the losses. The exposure here was leveraged positioning.
The largest single liquidation was a nearly $20 million Ether position on Hyperliquid. Other reported token totals included about $71 million for Solana, $34 million for XRP and $25 million for NEAR. Those figures are selected components of a moving market snapshot, not a complete accounting of the $1.19 billion total.
Why the liquidation totals changed overnight
An earlier Thursday snapshot put market-wide liquidations at $1.16 billion as of 20:19 UTC. At that point, reported long liquidations were $293.8 million for Ether and $269.7 million for Bitcoin. Those numbers are not directly interchangeable with the later $356 million and $298 million totals, which cover both sides of the market in a different rolling window.
For a trader following updates in real time, timestamps and categories matter. A rolling 24-hour total keeps changing as new positions close and older events leave the window. A liquidated position’s reported value also is not the same as the trader’s cash collateral loss. Calling the whole amount money that simply vanished would make a punchier headline, and a worse explanation.
Bitcoin’s rebound does not settle the argument
The selloff pushed Bitcoin below $81,000 before it recovered toward $82,000 on Friday. A separate market update linked that recovery to President Donald Trump ruling out an Iran strike before the midterm elections, easing one geopolitical concern.
Forced closures can amplify a decline because exchanges close losing positions when collateral becomes insufficient. That selling can drive prices toward the next group of liquidation thresholds. Removing leverage can reduce one source of pressure, but it does not, by itself, prove that fresh buyers are ready to support a lasting recovery.
The distinction matters particularly for Ether. Its outsized derivatives losses show where the stress concentrated during this episode. They do not provide a reliable shortcut to either a bullish reversal call or a forecast of further declines.
Bitcoin’s bounce offered relief. Ether’s heavier liquidation burden showed how uneven that relief may be. The useful read is less about declaring a bottom and more about separating a genuine recovery in demand from a market catching its breath after forced selling.
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Author: Ren Nakamura
Asia Newsroom
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