Crypto exchanges liquidated about $803 million in leveraged positions over 24 hours as bitcoin briefly fell below $81,000, with SanDisk contracts recording more forced closures than XRP. The episode highlights the growing use of crypto trading platforms for leveraged exposure to semiconductor stocks, as well as the risks created when sharp moves in traditional markets spill into digital-asset venues.
Bitcoin-led losses hit leveraged traders
The liquidation wave accelerated during Asian trading hours. Around $595 million, or almost three-quarters of the 24-hour total, was wiped out in the final 12 hours as South Korea’s KOSPI dropped more than 6% and bitcoin slipped to just under $81,000.
Long positions—trades that profit when prices rise—accounted for $694 million, or 86% of all liquidations. A liquidation occurs when an exchange forcibly closes a leveraged position after losses consume the collateral supporting it. Traders can therefore lose their positions without choosing to exit them when markets move sharply against them.
Bitcoin accounted for $181 million of the liquidations, while ether followed closely with $178 million. Binance represented about half of all the forced closures. Its largest individual loss was a $9.65 million bitcoin long, closed at approximately $81,700.
According to CoinDesk, the scale and composition of the losses showed that the selloff was not limited to cryptocurrencies. Contracts linked to individual chip companies and a semiconductor exchange-traded fund also featured prominently among the positions closed by exchanges.
SanDisk contracts overtake XRP
Perpetual futures tied to SanDisk, the U.S. memory-chip maker, recorded about $19.5 million in liquidations. That was slightly above the $19 million recorded for HYPE and ahead of XRP’s $18.78 million.
Perpetual futures are derivatives that allow traders to speculate on an asset’s price without owning the underlying asset. Unlike conventional futures, they do not have a fixed expiry date. On crypto exchanges, these contracts can provide around-the-clock access to leveraged bets on assets beyond cryptocurrencies, including shares and sector funds.
The SanDisk figure is significant because it exceeded the liquidation total for XRP, one of the better-known crypto assets. It indicates that chip-stock contracts can attract substantial speculative activity on digital-asset platforms, particularly when investors are positioning around a sharp move in the semiconductor sector.
Contracts linked to SK Hynix and Micron also appeared among the affected instruments. The heatmap additionally included SOXL, a U.S. semiconductor ETF designed to deliver triple-leveraged exposure to the sector; $7.21 million in SOXL positions were liquidated.
The forced closures followed a steep decline in Seoul. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each lost about 8% amid concerns about valuations connected to artificial intelligence and competition from Chinese memory-chip manufacturers. The moves in those companies added pressure to leveraged positions tied to the broader chip industry.
Not every market moved in the same direction. WTI and Brent crude contracts were among the few instruments where short positions made up most of the liquidations, while Brent remained near $106 after a three-day rally.
Rebound reverses liquidation pattern
The liquidation balance changed after bitcoin recovered above $83,000. Of the $74 million in positions liquidated during the following four hours, $59 million, or 79%, came from short positions. Short trades profit from falling prices, so the reversal meant that traders positioned for further declines were then caught by the rebound.
The sequence left much of the day’s bullish leverage cleared out before a U.S. inflation report scheduled for Thursday. The figures do not indicate how markets will respond to that report, but they show how quickly forced selling can switch direction after a sharp price reversal.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at 09:28–09:29 on October 13, 2026, showed continued weakness across several tracked digital assets:
- XRP was trading at $1.3634151526, down 2.91% over 24 hours and 9.35% over seven days.
- OriginTrail (TRAC) stood at $0.3994173092, down 0.15% in 24 hours and 3.07% over seven days.
- The Sandbox (SAND) was at $0.0602958033, down 6.11% over 24 hours and 7.92% over seven days.
- USD.AI (CHIP) traded at $0.0594187991, down 6.15% over 24 hours but up 12.33% over seven days.
These prices and percentage changes are Moneyiar data at the stated times. They provide a snapshot of selected tokens after the liquidation event, while the broader episode also involved bitcoin, ether and tokenized equity contracts traded on crypto venues.
