$627.7 Million in Crypto Positions Liquidated in an Hour Amid Binance Disruption
Key Facts
Crypto liquidations exceeded $627.7 million in a single hour late Thursday, October 29, according to CoinGlass data cited by BeInCrypto, including $606.6 million in positions betting on higher prices. The wave came as Binance investigated a potential security incident, adding pressure to a market where major assets were also falling. Bitcoin dropped 3.2% Thursday evening to below $79,000, according to the Associated Press. The published figures do not prove that the Binance issue alone caused the liquidations or LINK's decline. They place the token's drop within broader turbulence across the crypto market.
Binance alone recorded $344.8 million in liquidations during that hour, more than half the total, according to BeInCrypto. Liquidations over 24 hours reached $951.2 million and affected 161,647 traders, according to CoinGlass data cited in the report. The predominance of positions betting on gains in the hourly total indicates that a large share of the liquidations hit bets on rising prices. When prices move against leveraged positions, those positions can be closed by force, turning a wave of declines into additional liquidations. The figures measure the scale of position reduction in the market without specifying how much came from each individual coin.
BeInCrypto reported that the first transfer out of Binance 14's wallet arrived at 20:24 UTC on October 29, and that the steepest downward candles appeared in the following 15 minutes. The report linked this timeline to the market's reaction to an unexplained flow from hot wallets, but it does not prove that the transfer caused LINK's decline or liquidations. In a statement, Binance said its preliminary investigation suggested that an engineer's DevOps laptop may have been compromised. The attacker may have used it to access a service container and send unauthorized withdrawal transactions, it added. The platform said: "We have found no evidence that private wallet keys were leaked."
Binance estimated the incident's total impact at about $6.3 billion and said it had worked with blockchain partners to freeze about $3 billion in affected assets as of an October 30 update, according to the Associated Press. Separately, Reuters reported that Circle and Tether together froze more than $2.38 billion in stablecoins after Binance announced it was investigating a potential security issue. Binance said it would cover all losses from the SAFU fund and company funds, adding that user funds were safe. It also temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals during security checks. The company said it would publish technical details once the investigation was complete and the facts had been verified.
LINK closed at $10.614 on October 29, down 10.17% from the previous session, after closing at $11.816 on October 28, according to Investing.com data. EL7 data also records a LINKUSD close of $10.62 on October 29 and $10.94 on October 30. Bitcoin fell to a six-week low of $77,646, while Ether hit a two-month low of $2,238.76, according to Reuters via Investing.com. The moves show that the sell-off extended to major assets alongside LINK, but the sources do not establish that the token was the hardest hit.
The decline also came amid data described as strong U.S. inflation and a broader pullback in risk appetite linked to the technology sector, according to an Investing.com report attributed to Reuters. Bitcoin was heading for a loss of about 6% in October, the report added, after the seasonal rally pattern known as "Uptober" failed for the second consecutive year. In a development related to Chainlink, the network announced a strategic partnership on October 29 with Hanwha Investment & Securities to adopt the Chainlink data standard and CCIP protocol as official infrastructure for a global real-world asset tokenization platform being developed by the Korean company. Chainlink said the parties had formed a working group to study the use of tokenized assets as institutional collateral, valuation and reserve-verification methods, and the technical and regulatory requirements for tokenized securities in Korea. Chainlink also announced that its reserve accumulated 1,543,330.47 LINK in the third quarter, bringing total holdings to 6,047,498.3150 LINK at quarter-end. The partnership and reserve figures remain separate developments from the price movement recorded during the sell-off session.