TL;DR
- Over 160,000 traders were liquidated in 24 hours, with losses totaling $613 million.
- Ethereum’s drop below the 20-day average and SoftBank’s Nvidia stock sale triggered the panic.
- Technical analysis suggests growing volatility for ETH, with key supports at risk of breaking towards $3,000.
The final quarter of the year is underway, and the crypto market is suffering. We are facing one of the sector’s most complex weeks, with unexpected movements catching bullish investors off guard as the market registers significant losses in leveraged positions.
Specifically, on Wednesday alone, over $362 million vanished in less than four hours. This event set the tone for a dark day, with crypto market liquidations reaching a total of $613.16 million in the last 24 hours.
Driving this trend was the sharp reversal in Ethereum’s (ETH) price, which plummeted below the psychological $3,400 mark for the first time this month. However, another major player was the macroeconomic context.
SoftBank’s decision to sell part of its stake in tech giant Nvidia generated nervousness across global risk assets. Added to this was political uncertainty regarding the US government shutdown vote, creating a “perfect storm” that forced traders to unwind positions, triggering a cascading effect in derivatives.
Ethereum Technical Analysis and Short-Term Outlook
According to Coinglass, at least 160,000 traders saw their positions closed. The financial pain was disproportionately concentrated on bulls: of the funds wiped out, $503.23 million corresponded to long positions, compared to about $110 million in shorts. A curious detail from this day of crypto market liquidations was the largest single loss, occurring on the POPCAT-USD pair on Hyperliquid, valued at $21.29 million.
From a technical standpoint, Ethereum appears weak. Trading near $3,448, ETH has lost its 20-day simple moving average (SMA) located at $3,463, a line that acted as a short-term equilibrium. Bollinger Bands indicate expanding volatility, placing the next critical support at $3,225.
Indicators are not encouraging: the MACD remains in bearish territory. If bulls fail to defend the support range between $3,300 and $3,350, the door opens for a drop towards $3,000. For now, open interest in Bitcoin and Solana futures has also fallen by nearly 8%, confirming that the market is reducing its risk exposure until volatility stabilizes.
