Short squeeze wipes out $460M crypto positions

TLDR

Around $460 million of leveraged crypto positions were wiped out in a short squeeze as Bitcoin and Ethereum rebounded sharply over the last day.

1. Roughly $460.9 million in derivatives positions were liquidated in 24 hours, mostly shorts, as BTC and ETH bounced and forced bearish traders to cover.
2. Bitcoin, Ethereum and major altcoins like SOL, DOGE and XRP saw tens of millions in liquidations, concentrated on big venues such as Binance, OKX and Bybit.
3. Leverage in the system remains high, so positioning, funding rates and open interest are now key signals for whether this move extends or snaps back.

Deep Dive

1. Scale Of The Liquidations

According to CoinGlass data cited by Tokenpost, about $460.9 million in leveraged positions were liquidated over the 24 hours ending 18 June 2026 as prices rebounded.

Liquidations were skewed toward short positions, meaning traders betting on further downside were forced out as prices moved against them, which mechanically added more buy pressure.

This is consistent with a classic short squeeze, where rising prices plus high leverage create a feedback loop of forced buying rather than a slow, spot driven rally.

2. Who Got Hit Hardest

By asset, Bitcoin (BTC) saw about $92.44 million liquidated, with $65.12 million from shorts and $27.32 million from longs as BTC rose a little over 1 percent to roughly $140,700 in the cited window.

Ethereum (ETH) led in notional terms, with around $99.41 million liquidated, split roughly $58.14 million shorts and $41.27 million longs while ETH climbed about 3.6 percent to around $3,170.

Altcoins were also heavily impacted, including SOL at $31.21 million, DOGE at $29.84 million, XRP at $28.28 million, BNB at $18.68 million and AVAX at $14.59 million, plus nearly eight figure wipes in thinner names like SPCX and HYPE, signaling excess leverage even in smaller markets.

On venues, Binance accounted for roughly $8.99 million of the latest 4 hour liquidation window (about 46 percent of that slice), with a majority of those positions being shorts, while OKX and Bybit showed differing mixes of long and short pain.

3. What To Watch Next

Despite the wipeout, global derivatives open interest is still enormous, with current open interest around $399 billion and down only about 1.3 percent over the last day, indicating leverage remains elevated.

Average perpetual funding rates have jumped into positive territory and risen sharply versus recent days, which often signals traders are again paying a premium to be long and can precede further squeezes or mean reversion.

Conclusion

A roughly $460 million short driven liquidation wave flushed out over leveraged traders as BTC, ETH and majors bounced, but system wide open interest remains high. For crypto users, the key takeaway is that positioning and leverage metrics now matter as much as headlines, since the next big move could again come from derivatives imbalances rather than from new macro or project news.