BTC Back Under $80K: $233M 1H Long Wipe, OI Sheds
BTC slips back under $80,000 after the squeeze rally stalls
BTC spent the afternoon pushing higher, climbing to roughly $82,300 on Binance as short sellers were cleared out. That move stalled in the evening. The coin has since fallen back to about $79,800, giving back most of the day's squeeze gains in a couple of hours. Binance prints $79,831, up 2.08% on the day, while OKX shows $79,773, up 1.94%. The 24-hour range sits between a $78,167 low and the $82,283 high reached earlier.
A $233M long flush hits in one hour
The pullback turned violent for leveraged longs. Liquidation data shows $233.4M wiped in the past hour, and 97.7% of that was long positions. That is a sharp reversal from the session's earlier character, when shorts were the side getting squeezed. Over four hours the damage is $287.2M with longs still paying 82%. The largest single hit landed on Binance: a $22.9M BTC long was liquidated near $79,070, with several ETH and BTC longs of $5-9M following in the same minute. Hyperliquid also cleared a $6.05M BTC long at $79,659.
Why open interest is the tell
Aggregate open interest is still $43.6B, up about 1% over 24 hours, but the four-hour picture tells a different story. Binance OI is down 2.86% in four hours, OKX down 5.79%, Gate down 5%, Bybit down 3.4%. Leverage is leaving the market as price falls, which fits a liquidation cascade rather than fresh short positioning. Funding rates are flat at roughly 0.0035% OI-weighted, so there is no crowded long premium to unwind. The flush came from leveraged longs chasing the breakout, not from a leveraged market that was overheated.
Where the damage is concentrated
Over the full 24 hours, liquidations now total $839M, with shorts still responsible for the larger share at $539.7M because of the earlier squeeze. Binance leads venues with $327M in 24-hour liquidations, followed by OKX at $164.3M and Hyperliquid at $120.8M. The one-hour snapshot flips that mix completely, with long positions absorbing nearly all recent losses. The top coin accounts for $385.3M of the 24-hour total, with ETH next at $219M.
What to watch next
The key level is whether price holds the $78,000-79,000 zone after this flush. If open interest keeps sliding while price stabilizes, the forced-selling wave is closer to exhaustion. If longs re-enter with renewed leverage and funding stays flat, another push toward $82,000 remains possible. For traders, the immediate risk is chasing either direction: the same session produced an $82,283 high and a $78,167 low, and liquidation flows have flipped sides twice.
Data as of 20:33 Beijing time (08:33 ET) on Sep 4, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget and other major exchanges.