$1.55 billion in crypto liquidations over 24 hours hit 246,482 traders
Key Facts
Crypto market liquidations reached $1.55 billion over a 24-hour window, involving 246,482 traders, according to CoinGlass data cited by The Block in a report published on October 29. Long positions, which bet on rising prices, accounted for $1.34 billion of the total. A platform forcibly closes a position when a trader's margin is no longer sufficient to cover losses, according to The Block's definition. The report said the largest recorded liquidation order was $11.09 million in a Binance-BTCUSDT contract. The figures reflect the volume of positions closed during that window and do not represent the total for all of October 30.
Price pressure coincided with Binance's announcement that it was investigating reports of a potential security issue. The company estimated the total impact at about $6.3 billion and said it had worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets, with about $3 billion frozen on-chain by the time of the Associated Press report. The company did not explicitly confirm in the cited statement that funds had been stolen. Binance said its preliminary investigation indicated a compromised laptop belonging to an engineer on the DevOps team may have been involved. It added that it had found no evidence that private wallet keys were leaked.
The Associated Press reported that Binance temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while conducting security checks, working to freeze funds and cooperating with law enforcement. Circle said it had frozen the equivalent of more than $800 million in coordination with law enforcement. Tether's chief executive also said the company had frozen the equivalent of more than $1.5 billion linked to a potential platform hack. The freezes and suspension of transfers added an operational dimension to developments that coincided with price volatility. But the timing of the security incident alongside the liquidation wave does not by itself prove that it caused it.
On prices, the Associated Press reported that Bitcoin fell 3.2% on Thursday evening, October 29, to below $79,000. In early Asian trading on Friday, October 30, Bitcoin fell about 2% to a six-week low of $77,646, while Ether fell about 2% to a two-month low of $2,238.76, according to market data cited by Reuters via Investing.com. The Block had reported that Ethereum fell 5.2% to $2,190 and XRP declined 7% to $1.21 in its report published on October 29. The cited price levels and changes vary according to the time of each report. On the morning of October 30, the average spot bid-ask spread for Bitcoin on Binance widened to five times its usual level, and for Ether to 2.5 times, before narrowing slightly, according to an official at market maker GSR quoted by Reuters.
Yi He, Binance's co-founder, said the platform would cover all losses from the hack, without providing further details about the incident in the statement cited by Reuters. Standard Chartered's head of digital assets research warned that price pressure could persist until frozen assets were unfrozen and more details about the hack emerged, saying: "I think the negative price action could continue for some time. We won't find a new base until the assets are unfrozen and more details about the hack emerge." A researcher at HashKey Group said the disruption to deposits and withdrawals could affect market makers' ability to move capital between platforms, adding: "What concerns us more is the potential impact on liquidity." The incident comes amid a broader security backdrop: Reuters reported that researchers at TRM Labs estimated that about $2.9 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen in 2025 across nearly 150 attacks. In September 2026, Bitget said about $350 million in cryptocurrency had been stolen from its platform.