Fed Decision Sparks Liquidation Storm in Crypto: $286 Million Wiped Out in One Day
In the last 24 hours, during which prices in the cryptocurrency market trended sideways, $286 million worth of futures positions were liquidated as a result of sharp volatility.
The last 24 hours have been a literal roller coaster ride for cryptocurrency investors. Although prices remained close to their starting point by the end of the day, sudden intra-day fluctuations wiped out the balances of thousands of leveraged traders. According to CoinGlass data, the positions of more than 87,000 investors totaling $286 million were wiped from the market.
In this massive liquidation wave, long positions betting on price increases took the lion’s share with $186 million, while short positions expecting a decline saw $100 million in losses. Although the Bitcoin (BTC) price moved within a narrow range of just 2%—between $63,247 and $64,660—sharp spikes in both directions caught investors off guard. On the Ethereum (ETH) side, $58 million in losses were recorded as the price retreated toward the $1,900 levels.
Fed Decision and Stock Liquidations
At the center of this market activity was the interest rate decision announced by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed). A large portion of the liquidations, amounting to $188 million, occurred within the 12-hour window following the announcement. A single Bitcoin (BTC) trade on Binance worth $2.9 million was recorded as the largest individual loss of the day.
Even more striking were the events in stock-based perpetual futures traded on crypto exchanges. On crypto derivative platforms, $19 million in SanDisk contracts, $10 million in Micron, $7 million in SK Hynix, and $7 million in the leveraged semiconductor ETF SOXL were liquidated. Nearly all of these positions were long-biased; the long/short ratio was 7-to-1 in Micron ($9 million vs. $1 million) and 2-to-1 in SanDisk. Investors had used crypto infrastructure to bet on the AI memory trade with high leverage but were caught unprepared for the year’s sharpest chip sell-off. Despite increasing its profit by 557%, SK Hynix fell 17% on Wednesday after missing expectations; the Korean Kospi index has retreated more than 40% from its June peak. This marks the second time in the same week that stock perpetuals on crypto platforms have led to significant losses. On Monday, the SK Hynix contract on Trade.xyz fell by 19%, triggering $60 million in liquidations; the exchange subsequently agreed to reimburse these losses.