Bitcoin and Ether Hold Steady After Sharp Swings Liquidate $286M in Futures Bets

Volatility tied to the Federal Reserve’s policy decision erased leveraged positions held by nearly 90,000 traders, with both bullish and bearish participants suffering almost equal damage.

Major cryptocurrencies appeared stable over the past 24 hours, but that calm surface concealed sharp price swings surrounding the Fed meeting. The back-and-forth moves triggered heavy liquidations in leveraged futures markets, catching traders positioned in either direction.

According to CoinGlass, about $286 million in crypto positions were liquidated within a day across 87,294 traders. Long traders absorbed approximately $186 million in losses, while short traders accounted for about $100 million, reflecting a market that made aggressive moves both higher and lower before returning close to where it began.

Bitcoin liquidations affected both sides of the market. Around $57 million worth of BTC positions were wiped out, with losses almost evenly split between longs and shorts. Long positions accounted for roughly $28 million, while shorts represented about $29 million. Bitcoin traded between $63,247 and $64,660 during the period, a limited move of under 2% that was still enough to trigger forced closures.

The largest single liquidation involved a $2.9 million bitcoin position on Binance.

Ether saw the highest liquidation total among major cryptocurrencies, with roughly $58 million in positions closed out, primarily affecting traders holding long positions. Ether moved between $1,850 and $1,920 during the same window. Bitcoin was trading near $63,900 at the latest update, almost identical to its level a day earlier, while ether remained around $1,900.

The largest concentration of liquidations occurred after Wednesday’s Federal Reserve announcement, which sparked sudden market volatility. The event accounted for approximately $188 million in liquidated positions, including around $130 million from long trades.

An unusual amount of the damage came from stock-linked perpetual futures available on crypto exchanges. Around $19 million in SanDisk positions were liquidated, along with $10 million in Micron contracts, $7 million in SK Hynix positions, and $7 million in SOXL, a leveraged semiconductor ETF. These instruments allow traders to take leveraged positions on traditional market assets through crypto trading platforms.

The majority of those liquidations came from bullish bets. Micron saw around $9 million in long positions liquidated compared with $1 million in shorts, while SanDisk’s long liquidations were roughly double its short liquidations.

Traders had been using crypto derivatives venues to gain exposure to the AI semiconductor boom, building heavily bullish positions before the sector experienced a sharp reversal.

That positioning proved costly. SK Hynix shares plunged 17% on Wednesday despite reporting a 557% increase in profits, as investors judged the results insufficient against extremely high expectations. South Korea’s Kospi has now dropped more than 40% from its June peak.

The latest event marked the second major disruption involving equity perpetual futures on crypto exchanges this week. On Monday, a single trade on a low-volume Korean pre-market venue sent Trade.xyz’s SK Hynix perpetual contract down 19%, triggering approximately $60 million in liquidations. The exchange later announced plans to reimburse affected traders.