Crypto market sees nearly $1B in daily liquidations as overleveraged longs are caught off guard by macro jitters

The cryptocurrency market experienced over $980.9 million in liquidations from more than 223,300 traders in the past 24 hours, according to public data aggregated on Coinglass.

It's worth noting that the total liquidations would likely exceed this amount. The reported liquidation figures are based on publicly available data, which may understate the true extent of market liquidations. 

“The $980M liquidation event was a perfect storm fueled by the Trump-Musk feud, tariff-driven macro fears, and a highly over-leveraged market," said Vincent Liu, CIO at Kronos Research. "Structural fragility in crypto, where automated liquidations can snowball quickly, turned a sentiment-driven dip into a rapid market unwind.”

Out of the entire amount, $876.23 million in liquidations came from long positions. Among cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin saw $341.71 million in liquidations, with 90% of the liquidation volume coming from long positions. Ether had $285.64 million with Solana, XRP and Doge seeing notable amounts of liquidations.

The amount of long positions liquidated indicates that over-leveraged traders were "caught off-guard" by sharp drops in BTC and ETH, where excessive bullish sentiment worked against investors by amplifying the market correction, Liu told The Block.

Crypto prices have been riding high winds in recent weeks, as bitcoin renewed its all-time high of around $111,800. Despite having pulled back from the high record, analysts had said the largest cryptocurrency had stabilized at around $105,000.

However, bitcoin, along with ether, took a sharp downturn late Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump and his right-hand man, Elon Musk, went into a public dispute online, triggered by disagreements over Trump’s signature tax and spending bill, which Musk publicly criticized as a “disgusting abomination.”

Bitcoin once fell close to $100,000, its lowest point since early May, but has since recovered to trade at $103,333 as of publication time, according to The Block's bitcoin price page.

"Bitcoin's price was already hovering near support levels after cooling off from its all-time high two weeks prior, investors on edge, wary of any triggers that could correct overleveraged traders," said Nick Ruck, director at LVRG Research. "[The conflict] led to large-scale liquidations as investors were concerned about potential retaliatory actions between the two, which could further impact markets."

Meanwhile, investors now look to the release of U.S. employment data later on Friday, and the upcoming consumer price index data release on June 11, which is expected to be a "major catalyst" for the next price move, Kronos CIO Liu said.

"Key signals to watch include US-China macro developments, including talk of Trump’s 'big beautiful' tariff bill, USD strength, and institutional flows," Liu added. "The market remains fragile after a wave of liquidations, with overleveraged traders amplifying volatility."

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