Nearly $1B in crypto bets wiped out as bitcoin, ether, XRP slide
Ether took the brunt of the forced closures, sinking about twice as hard as bitcoin as leveraged traders got flushed out.
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Key takeaways
- Close to $1 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated as bitcoin, ether and XRP all fell.
- Ether made up nearly 60% of forced closures across the two largest coins.
- Ether dropped roughly twice as much as bitcoin.
- Liquidations tend to amplify moves: forced selling pushes prices lower, which triggers more forced selling.
Nearly $1 billion in leveraged crypto bets got liquidated as bitcoin, ether and XRP slid, CoinDesk reported on Thursday, October 15, 2026. That's a lot of borrowed conviction gone in a hurry.
Ether takes the hit
Ether got hammered. It made up nearly 60% of the forced closures across the two biggest cryptocurrencies, and it fell roughly twice as much as bitcoin. The pain wasn't spread evenly.
You've seen this movie before. When the market turns, ether often moves harder than bitcoin, and the traders who piled into leveraged longs get wiped out faster. Same script, different day.
How a liquidation cascade works
Borrow money to bet on higher prices, and your position gets closed automatically once your losses eat through your collateral. No phone call, no grace period. Those forced closures are market sells, so they push prices down further, which trips the next batch of positions. It feeds on itself.
The source material here is thin, so I can't give you exact price levels or say what triggered the drop. We'll update if more comes out.
Why it matters
If you trade with leverage, this is the risk in action. You don't need to be wrong about the long-term direction. Just early, or overextended. That's enough to get you wiped out. If you simply hold, a liquidation-driven dip can look scarier than the fundamentals warrant, though it can also be the start of something bigger. The real question: are ether's heavier losses a one-day flush, or a sign that traders are rotating out of riskier assets? Watch that, not the headline number.
Source: CoinDesk
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Sofia Marek
Sofia reviews exchanges and crypto casinos, focused on fees, safety and what actually reaches the player.
