The cryptocurrency market experienced one of the most destructive one-hour episodes in recent memory: the volume of forcibly closed positions reached $627.7 million, of which $606.6 million came from long bets. The trigger was an unexplained withdrawal of about $2 billion from Binance hot wallets, instantly spawning a wave of rumors about a possible hack of the world's largest exchange.
No official confirmation of a compromise followed, and the Binance team did not publicly comment on the situation. Nevertheless, the market instantly priced in the worst-case scenario — and leveraged traders lost money before the first facts even emerged.
Speed of the Sell-Off
Bitcoin was trading around $80,800 on Binance at 20:00 UTC. By 20:35 UTC, the price had collapsed to roughly $78,300 — a 3% decline in a single candle. The rate then rebounded above $79,100.
Ethereum fell harder: from $2,335 to a low of around $2,233 — a drop of more than 4%. The rate later recovered to $2,263.
The timeline coincides with an on-chain transaction: the first withdrawal from Binance 14 wallet occurred at 20:24 UTC, and the sharpest candles formed in the following 15 minutes.
Who Lost Money
Liquidation is the forced closure of a position by an exchange when a trader uses borrowed funds to increase their bet and the price moves against them far enough.
Within an hour, positions worth $189.1 million in Bitcoin and $156.8 million in Ethereum were liquidated. Solana (SOL) took third place with $46.8 million. Shorts lost only $21.1 million. The largest forced liquidation was a Bitcoin long on Binance worth $11.09 million at a price of $79,254.
Binance accounted for $344.8 million in liquidations within the hour — more than half of the total volume. It was followed by Hyperliquid with $97 million and Bybit with $77.3 million.
This is three times more than the $200 million in closed positions that drove Bitcoin below $80,000 last Saturday. Over 24 hours, 161,647 traders were liquidated for $951.2 million — two-thirds of the losses came in the final hour.
Why Traders Reacted with a Sell-Off
Bitcoin was already vulnerable: last week it failed to hold above $83,000, and analyst Benjamin Cowen's bearish fourth-quarter scenario kept players watching the $80,000 mark as the last important level.
A breach on Binance, the largest exchange by trading volume, carries additional risk compared to attacks on DeFi. Funds stolen from an exchange are often sold immediately; any movement of that money from new recipients again affects prices until Binance provides an explanation for the transaction.
Cryptalist Analysis: The episode demonstrates the structural fragility of a highly leveraged market: an unconfirmed rumor of a hack triggered nearly $630 million in liquidations within an hour, while the asymmetry in favor of longs confirms the market is overloaded with bullish bets. Until official clarifications from Binance emerge, volatility will remain elevated, and the $80,000 level on BTC is the key zone determining the further direction of capital movement.