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Ten minutes. That is reportedly how long it took for $110 million in short positions to be wiped out across crypto derivatives markets.
What happened during the squeeze
The $110 million figure covers short positions that were forcibly closed within a single 10-minute window. Research compiled on the event places it on October 2, 2026.
Liquidation trackers, including ByKaranteli, showed heavy short liquidations lining up with a burst of market volatility.
In the 24 hours before the spike, total liquidations ranged from $100 million to $170 million, and shorts often made up more than $70 million of that.
One standout was a $2.1 million ETH short liquidated on Binance. Several multimillion-dollar liquidations in BTC and ETH also hit centralized exchanges.
Recent liquidation events have caught more than 56,000 traders across more than 11 venues.
How a short squeeze feeds itself
When the price moves against a leveraged short seller, the exchange closes the trade automatically before losses eat through the collateral. For a short seller, closing the trade means buying the asset back, and all that forced buying pushes prices higher. Higher prices then knock out the next layer of shorts, which triggers still more buying.
CoinGlass data shows shorts have typically accounted for 65-90% of all liquidations during major price surges.
Not the first time, and not the biggest
A short liquidation of the same $110 million size hit during a Bitcoin rally in June 2025. Various 2026 events have erased anywhere from $50 million to over $260 million in shorts during fast upward moves.
In September 2026, more than $58 million in shorts was liquidated within one hour. Larger hourly events have previously topped $200 million.
What sets the latest wave apart is speed, with $110 million in forced closures packed into roughly 10 minutes.
What this means for traders
The research behind the event suggests aggressive long positioning may keep volatility elevated afterward, as traders react to fear of further swings in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
For anyone watching from the sidelines, the useful signals are the long-to-short mix in liquidation data and where short positions start clustering again. If the CoinGlass pattern of 65-90% short-driven liquidations during surges holds, the next fast rally will once again be financed partly by the people betting against it.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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