Top Crypto Liquidation Events

The biggest liquidation in crypto history, by widely cited aggregates, came on October 10, 2025, when about $19.16 billion in leveraged positions were force-closed in a day after a U.S. tariff hike on China. Longs made up roughly $16.70 billion of that, across about 1.63 million traders. The next-largest days were April 18, 2021 (about $9.94 billion) and May 19, 2021 (about $9.01 billion). Both were also long-heavy sell-offs.

What the tables measure

A liquidation happens when an exchange closes a leveraged futures position because the trader’s margin no longer covers losses. On this page:

• Liquidations is the dollar value of all forced closures that day across Binance, Bybit, OKX and HTX.
• Long / Short splits that value by the side that was wiped out. Falling prices liquidate longs, and rising prices liquidate shorts.
• Dominant names the larger side.
• Orders counts individual liquidation orders, not unique traders.
• BTC day change shows Bitcoin’s move over the same day for context.

The days ranking starts from when tracking began on November 8, 2026. All-time records such as the October 2025 event come from longer historical aggregates.

Reading the single-order table

Look at timestamps as well as size. When many orders on one exchange land within the same minute or two at steadily lower prices, that is a cascade: each forced sale pushes price into the next cluster of stops. For example (hypothetical), a long at 20x leverage loses its initial margin after roughly a 5% adverse move, before fees and maintenance margin.

What drives large liquidation days

Totals scale with how much leverage is open. High open interest and stretched funding rates tend to precede the sharpest flushes, and a news shock supplies the trigger. Nearby liquidation levels appear on the liquidation heatmap.

Limits

Figures cover only the four listed venues and depend on what each exchange publishes in its liquidation stream. Totals from sources tracking a different exchange set will not match exactly.