Bitcoin and Ethereum Lead Massive 24 Hour Liquidation Wave Across Major Exchanges

The last 24 hours have seen a sharp surge in liquidations of Bitcoin and altcoins, which denotes increased volatility and insistence on leveraged positions. Recent statistics as of January 19, 2026, indicate that there was extensive liquidations of both centralized and decentralized exchanges and the greatest losses were recorded in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. Overall 248,483 traders were liquidated when prices reversed rapidly against overleveraged positions, and that illustrates how risk and reward are in a fine line in the present market conditions.

Exchange Liquidations Reveal Heavy Leverage Exposure

Data on an exchange level illustrates the magnitude of the liquidation cascade. Hyperliquid registered the largest volume of its liquidation at $261.25 million which makes it the most affected platform in the 24 hour period. Bybit came next with $238.56 million liquidations, which shows high derivatives trading and a high leverage ratio. Binance has registered liquidations of $172.02 million and Bitget at $61.84 million. 

OKX has recorded $60.67 million, Gate recorded $40.90 million, HTX recorded $27.57 million and CoinEx has closed the list with $6.29 million. The propagation across exchanges implies the liquidation event was systemic as opposed to an individual platform event.

Long Positions Dominate Liquidation Ratios

This data indicates a strong predominance of long liquidations in majority of the exchanges. Long liquidation rates stood at 92.64 percent in Hyperliquid, 93.85 percent in Bybit and 85.86 percent in Binance. 

Bitget liquidated a long share of 90.58 percent and OKX at 86.59 per cent. Gate came next with 83.13 percent, HTX reported 86.26 percent and CoinEx recorded the highest long ratio at 96.92 percent. The short liquidation rates were relatively low, with a low of 3.08 percent on CoinEx and a high of 16.87 percent on Gate.io, meaning that bullish traders absorbed most of the market reversal.

Bitcoin Leads Asset Liquidations by Wide Margin

Bitcoin became the most liquidated asset wiped out of $229.91 million, which is about 2.48K Bitcoin. Ethereum had a liquidation amount of $155.25 million that corresponds to approximately 48.50K ETH. Solana had the third position with a total of $60.93 million which is approximately 456.88K SOL. Such numbers bring into focus the concentration of liquidation pressure on the major layer-one assets as traders concentrated leverage on the high-liquidity markets.

Altcoins Feel the Impact as Volatility Spreads

In addition to the three leading assets, a number of large altcoins were being liquidated in high volumes. XRP liquidated 40.73 million dollars, which is equivalent to around 20.78 million XRP. Dogecoin made a record of $35.16 million which is equivalent to 276.85 million DOGE. Zcash came right behind with $13.66 million, or 36.95K ZEC. 

Aster recorded $13.11 million, Litecoin recorded $8.99 million and Sui recorded $7.34 million. Further liquidations were seen in ENA at $7.16 million, PUMP at $6.70 million and Uniswap at $6.58 million, which validated the widespread pressure in large cap and mid cap tokens.

Biggest Single Liquidation Cites Market Risk

The biggest single liquidation order made in the 24 hour period was done at Hyperliquid, in the Bitcoin/USDT trading pair. The position was worth 25.83 million dollars, reflecting the speed with which large leveraged trades are able to dismantle in difficult circumstances. 

The magnitude of the liquidations indicates that speculative positioning had been high before the movement in the market. The incident can be viewed as a kind of temporary reset of leverage in the crypto derivatives markets: almost a quarter-million traders have been liquidated in a single day. 

Although forced liquidations tend to close open interest and unloading in the immediate future, they also indicate that the current condition is of uncertainty. With traders revaluating risk exposure, market participants will probably be on high alert, monitoring price action, funding rate and leverage indicators over the coming days.