ETH Short Squeeze: $5.09M Gate Wipe Tops $111M Day
Shorts paid 92% of ETH's 24h liquidation bill
ETH climbed back to $2,486 in the early Asia session, up about 1.4% on both Binance and OKX, while BTC sat flat near $79,850. The perp market did the heavy lifting: ETH logged $17.1M in liquidations over 24 hours and $15.67M of that hit short positions, roughly 92%. Longs lost only $1.4M in the same window.
The direction shows up at market level too. Total crypto liquidations reached $111.2M in 24h, with shorts paying $79.8M, about 72%. The split gets more one-sided as the window narrows: $19.4M of the $27.1M wiped in 4h were shorts, and in the last hour shorts absorbed $11.2M of the $12M total, a 93% share. Two days ago the flush was hitting longs; that flow has now reversed.
The $5.09M Gate short print
The largest single liquidation on the feed was an ETH short on Gate: 2,047.9 ETH wiped at $2,488.63 for about $5.09M, stamped within the last hour. Gate then cleared two more ETH shorts around $2,488-2,490 ($393K and $300K), so the venue saw roughly $5.8M of short-side ETH liquidations in one cluster. Elsewhere on Gate the day was quiet; this burst stands out.
Why Gate? Its ETH open interest is up 9.2% in 24h to about $2.81B, the fastest build among the top venues, while OKX trimmed 2.5%. Fresh leverage arrived on Gate and part of it sat short into strength, then got squeezed out in a single print.
OI is still climbing after the wipe
ETH open interest across 22 venues sits near $25.4B, up 2.4% in 24h. The flush did not trigger a broad unwind: Binance added 3.1% and Gate 9.2%, while only OKX and Deribit cut back. Funding is mild and positive almost everywhere (Binance 0.0079%, OKX near zero) and slightly negative on Gate at -0.0038%, a leftover from the short buildup that just got cleared.
ETH is outperforming BTC this session at +1.4% versus roughly +0.3%, with BTC range-bound between $79,400 and $80,250. The squeeze has a wider context than one coin; ETH simply produced the biggest single casualty.
What to watch
One print equaled 42% of the entire hourly liquidation total, which points to thin positioning rather than a crowded market. If ETH holds the $2,450 zone and Gate funding flips positive, the shorts who defended near $2,490 are likely gone and the path toward the $2,493-2,498 highs stays open. A daily close back under $2,440 would cancel that setup and probably pull open interest lower with it.
Data as of 06:08 Beijing time (22:08 UTC), covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Gate, Hyperliquid, Bitget and other major exchanges.