The Federal Reserve’s rate decision triggered sharp market swings that forced nearly 90,000 traders out of leveraged positions, with losses split unusually evenly between long and short traders.
Major cryptocurrencies ended the 24-hour period largely flat, but the lack of movement concealed significant volatility around the Fed meeting. Rapid price reversals caught leveraged futures traders off guard, leading to widespread liquidations.
According to CoinGlass data, roughly $286 million worth of crypto positions were liquidated within 24 hours across 87,294 traders. Long positions accounted for about $186 million of the losses, while shorts made up approximately $100 million, showing a market that moved aggressively in both directions before returning close to its original range.
Bitcoin traders on both sides faced heavy losses. Around $57 million in BTC positions were liquidated, with the impact almost evenly divided between bulls and bears. Long liquidations totaled about $28 million, while shorts accounted for roughly $29 million. Bitcoin fluctuated between $63,247 and $64,660 during the period, a relatively small price range that was still enough to wipe out traders positioned for either a rally or a decline.
The largest single liquidation involved a $2.9 million bitcoin position on Binance.
Ether saw the highest liquidation figure among major cryptocurrencies, with approximately $58 million in positions removed, mostly affecting long traders. Ether traded between $1,850 and $1,920 during the same period. Bitcoin was trading near $63,900 at the latest update, almost unchanged from the previous day, while ether remained close to $1,900.
Most liquidation activity occurred around Wednesday’s Fed announcement, as the highly anticipated decision caused abrupt market fluctuations. The event accounted for roughly $188 million in liquidations, including about $130 million from long positions.
A separate wave of losses emerged in equity perpetual futures traded on crypto platforms. Around $19 million in SanDisk positions were liquidated, alongside $10 million in Micron contracts, $7 million in SK Hynix positions, and $7 million in SOXL, a leveraged semiconductor ETF. These products allow traders to take leveraged positions on stocks and funds through crypto exchanges.
The overwhelming majority of these liquidations involved long positions. Micron contracts saw about $9 million in long liquidations compared with $1 million in shorts, while SanDisk’s long liquidations were roughly twice the size of short liquidations.
Traders had been using crypto-based derivatives markets to gain exposure to the AI memory chip rally, entering the latest market downturn with heavily bullish positions.
That positioning proved costly as semiconductor stocks suffered their steepest selloff of the year. SK Hynix shares dropped 17% on Wednesday despite reporting a 557% increase in profits, as investors viewed the results as falling short of extremely high expectations. South Korea’s Kospi has now declined more than 40% from its June peak.
The latest incident marks the second major liquidation event involving equity perpetual futures on crypto exchanges this week. On Monday, a single trade in a thin Korean pre-market market pushed Trade.xyz’s SK Hynix perpetual contract down 19%, triggering about $60 million in liquidations. The exchange later agreed to compensate affected traders.
