Crypto Liquidations: Daily BTC and ETH Longs vs Shorts
How much leveraged Bitcoin and Ether futures exposure was forcibly closed each day, and whether it was longs or shorts that got caught. Data comes from OKX, one of the three largest crypto derivatives exchanges, collected twice a day. It is a single-venue sample, not a market-wide total, and it is labelled that way throughout.
Latest reading: OKX recorded US$34.8 million of BTC and ETH perpetual futures liquidations on 30 September 2026 (UTC): US$16.5 million of longs and US$18.3 million of shorts, across 3,421 liquidation orders.
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Trade with PepperstoneDaily OKX liquidations (BTC and ETH perpetuals)
| Date (UTC) | Total | Longs | Shorts | Long share | BTC | ETH | Largest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-30 | US$34.8M | US$16.5M | US$18.3M | 47% | US$20.9M | US$14.0M | US$1.3M long (ETH-USDT) |
| 2026-09-29 | US$21.1M | US$9.6M | US$11.5M | 45% | US$7.4M | US$13.7M | US$1.4M short (ETH-USDT) |
| 2026-09-28 | US$43.8M | US$22.7M | US$21.2M | 52% | US$18.1M | US$25.7M | US$1.3M short (ETH-USDT) |
| 2026-09-27 | US$14.7M | US$8.5M | US$6.2M | 58% | US$5.6M | US$9.1M | US$1.4M short (ETH-USDT) |
Today so far (2026-10-01 UTC, in progress): US$8.8M liquidated, US$5.7M longs and US$3.0M shorts across 1014 orders. Green in the long-share bar is longs, red is shorts.
What a liquidation is
Crypto futures let traders control a position much larger than the cash they post. The exchange holds that cash as margin. If the price moves against the position far enough that the margin is almost gone, the exchange's risk engine closes the position at market. That is a liquidation, and the trader loses the margin.
Liquidations matter beyond the traders who get closed out. A forced sell order from a long liquidation pushes price lower, which can trigger the next layer of long liquidations below it. That cascade is why crypto can drop 5 to 10 percent in minutes on no news, and why the same happens in reverse as a short squeeze.
How to read the numbers
- Long share above 70 percent on a big day means the market was crowded long and got flushed, which often happens near local tops or during sharp sell-offs.
- Long share below 30 percent on a big day is a short squeeze: traders betting on a fall were forced to buy back.
- Size relative to recent days matters more than the absolute figure. Compare each day with the rolling history in the table.
- Pair it with positioning data. Rising open interest and high funding rates before a large long-liquidation day is the classic overleveraged setup.
Why one exchange, and why OKX
Market-wide liquidation totals are compiled by paid data vendors from exchange feeds that are not freely available. Rather than estimate, I publish one venue's complete, verifiable numbers. OKX publishes every filled liquidation order through a public API, it is one of the three largest crypto derivatives exchanges by volume, and its BTC and ETH perpetuals are among the most traded contracts in the market. The direction and relative size of a day's liquidations on OKX is a reliable read on the whole market, even though the totals are a fraction of the global figure.
Methodology
- Source. OKX public liquidation-orders API, filled orders only, for BTC-USDT, BTC-USD, ETH-USDT and ETH-USD perpetual swaps.
- US dollar value. USDT-margined contracts: contracts x contract size x bankruptcy price. Coin-margined contracts: contracts x US$ contract value. Contract sizes come from OKX's instruments API on every run.
- Long or short. A liquidated long position (closed by a sell) counts as a long liquidation; a liquidated short (closed by a buy) counts as a short liquidation.
- Collection. OKX keeps about 24 hours of history, and the refresh runs twice a day, at most 18 hours apart. Each order is counted once using a unique key. A day is marked complete only when the whole UTC day is covered with no gap; any gap is recorded in the data file.
- Data file. The full daily history is published at
/assets/data/crypto-liquidations.json.
Related tools
- Bitcoin open interest - how much leverage is in the market.
- Bitcoin funding rate - whether longs or shorts are paying to hold.
- Funding rate heatmap - funding across coins.
- Stablecoin supply - the cash side of crypto liquidity.
- US economic calendar - the releases that often trigger liquidation cascades.
Frequently asked questions
OKX recorded US$34.8 million of BTC and ETH perpetual futures liquidations on 30 September 2026 (UTC): US$16.5 million of longs and US$18.3 million of shorts, across 3,421 liquidation orders.
When a trader uses leverage on a futures contract, the exchange closes the position automatically if losses eat through the margin posted. That forced close is a liquidation. A long liquidation happens when price falls; a short liquidation happens when price rises. Large clusters of liquidations can push price further in the same direction as the forced orders hit the market.
It means traders betting on higher prices with leverage were forced out, usually during a sharp drop. A day dominated by long liquidations signals the market was crowded long and got flushed. A day dominated by short liquidations (a short squeeze) signals the opposite.
No. The figures are for OKX only, covering BTC and ETH perpetual swaps (both USDT-margined and coin-margined). OKX is one of the three largest crypto derivatives venues, so its numbers show direction and relative size well, but market-wide totals across all exchanges are several times larger. Treat this as a consistent daily sample.
An automated refresh collects OKX's filled liquidation orders twice a day (07:30 and 13:30 Sydney time). OKX publishes roughly the last 24 hours of liquidations, so each run picks up everything since the previous run. Days are reported in UTC and only shown once the whole day has been captured.
Use less leverage, keep enough margin that a normal daily move does not reach your liquidation price, and use a stop-loss you choose rather than letting the exchange close you out. In Australia, retail crypto CFD leverage is capped at 2:1 by ASIC and ASIC-regulated brokers must provide negative balance protection, so you cannot lose more than your account balance.
Collection began on 26 September 2026 (UTC). The table fills in one complete day at a time from then on, so it will show a rolling 30-day history once a month of data has been collected.
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