Bitcoin, AI stock slide sees over $500 million in bullish bets wiped out

• Over $584 million in crypto positions were liquidated, primarily affecting long positions amid thin liquidity and fragile risk sentiment.
• Bitcoin and ether led the liquidations, with Binance, Bybit, and Hyperliquid accounting for nearly three-quarters of the total.
• The event is indicative the market's sensitivity to leverage, with volatility expected to remain high until spot demand strengthens.

Crypto markets saw a sharp leverage reset over the past 24 hours, with more than $584 million in positions liquidated, as heavily skewed long positioning was forced out amid thin liquidity and fragile risk sentiment.

Bitcoin and major altcoins fell throughout U.S. trading hours as macro uncertainty continued to pressure risk assets. Many crypto-related stocks, including leaders Coinbase and Strategy, posted deeper slumps than crypto itself.

AI-linked stocks, such as Broadcom and Oracle continue to reel from soft earnings results last week, as CoinDesk reported earlier Monday.

Data shows 181,893 traders were liquidated, with long positions accounting for over 87% of total losses — a clear sign that the move was driven less by fresh bearish catalysts and more by the market’s inability to sustain crowded bullish bets.

Bitcoin and ether led the wipeout, posting $174.3 million and $189 million in liquidations respectively, according to liquidation heatmap data. The largest single liquidation order was a $11.58 million BTCUSDT position that occurred on Binance.

Binance, Bybit and Hyperliquid together accounted for nearly three-quarters of total liquidations, with Hyperliquid standing out for the severity of the imbalance: 98% of liquidated positions on the venue were longs, underscoring how aggressively traders were positioned heading into the move.

The liquidation event unfolded without a major headline catalyst, reinforcing a broader theme that has defined recent market action: low conviction rallies built on leverage rather than spot demand are proving increasingly fragile.

Market participants say the structure of the wipeout resembles a classic liquidity sweep rather than panic selling. Prices pushed just far enough below key intraday support levels to trigger cascading stop-losses and forced liquidations, before stabilizing — a pattern typical of range-bound or late-cycle conditions.

“The market remains extremely sensitive to positioning,” said one derivatives trader. “When leverage stacks up on one side, it doesn’t take much to force a reset — especially in holiday-thinned conditions.”

Altcoins also saw forced selling, though at smaller scale. Solana recorded $34.5 million in liquidations, while XRP and Dogecoin posted $14.5 million and $11.8 million, respectively. The concentration of losses in majors suggests institutions and larger traders bore the brunt of the move, rather than retail speculation alone.

Despite the scale of the liquidations, spot prices avoided a broader breakdown, reinforcing the view that the event reflected positioning excesses, not a decisive shift in market trend.

Still, traders caution that repeated long-heavy flushes point to deteriorating market structure. Until leverage cools and spot-led demand returns, volatility is likely to remain skewed to the downside — with rallies vulnerable to abrupt reversals.

• As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
• GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
• Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

• The U.S. added 64,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%.
• As for October, employment fell by 105,000 versus 119,000 jobs added in September.
• Both reports had been delayed to the U.S. government shutdown.

Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.