Crypto exchanges liquidate $51.6 million in chip-stock bets during U.S. market closure

Crypto venues now let traders take leveraged positions on chip stocks at any hour, and a Saturday liquidation cascade showed what happens when no real share price exists to anchor them. The episode gives BlockWest readers a live test of how weekend equity perpetuals behave against the underlying market.

• About $51.6 million in chip-linked positions were force-closed between 21:22 and 21:32 UTC on Saturday, per CoinGlass data.
• SOXL liquidations reached about $12.7 million, while SanDisk and SK Hynix contracts each saw about $10.8 million closed.
• U.S. markets reopen Monday, when outside stock quotes return and reveal how far weekend contract prices strayed.

• $51.6M chip-linked positions force-closed in 10 minutes, according to CoinGlass data
• $38M of liquidations came from long bets, roughly 74% of the total
• $12.7M SOXL liquidations, largest single contract, ahead of $10.8M for SanDisk
• $21.9M Binance SanDisk trading in the first minute versus $3.1M on Trade XYZ

Nearly $52 million in leveraged crypto bets on chip stocks was wiped out in 10 minutes on Saturday, CoinDesk reported. Wall Street was closed, so the shares themselves sat idle.

The bets were perpetual futures, contracts that track a stock’s price and trade around the clock on crypto exchanges. That lets traders buy and sell chip stocks on a Saturday night. A trader who borrows to enlarge a position is closed out automatically when losses eat through the deposit, and the forced selling can push prices lower for the next trader in line.

The checkpoint is Monday, when U.S. markets reopen.

SOXL takes the biggest hit at $12.7 million as long bets bear the brunt

CoinGlass data put the total at about $51.6 million in positions tied to chip stocks and semiconductor funds, all closed by force between 21:22 and 21:32 UTC. About $38 million came from traders betting on higher prices, roughly 74% of the total.

SOXL, a fund that triples the daily moves in chip shares, took the biggest hit at about $12.7 million. SanDisk and SK Hynix contracts followed at about $10.8 million each.

Binance sell orders at 21:21:59 UTC reached Hyperliquid in under a second

The selling started on Binance, according to a review of the trades by David Jeong, chief executive of trading firm Tread.fi. Jeong placed the first large SanDisk and Micron sell orders on Binance at 21:21:59 UTC. Less than a second later, orders hit Hyperliquid, a crypto exchange where Trade XYZ lists stock-tracking contracts.

Roughly 10 addresses opened bets against six chip-linked contracts within 1.8 seconds. Binance handled about $21.9 million of SanDisk trading in that first minute, against $3.1 million on Trade XYZ, or about seven times as much.

Memory-chip shares were already coming off a rough week as investors weighed new competition from Chinese chipmaker CXMT. The reporting does not include comment from Binance, Hyperliquid, Trade XYZ or CXMT, so their positions are not represented.

Trade XYZ sets its own reference prices until Monday’s stock quotes return

With the stock market shut, there was no real share price for these contracts to follow, so traders were reacting only to each other. Trade XYZ’s rules let trading on the platform set its own reference prices until outside stock quotes come back. Those quotes return when U.S. markets open Monday, showing how far Saturday’s prices strayed from where the shares actually trade.

The BlockWest read. We read the episode as a stress test of venue design rather than of chip stocks. Binance carried about seven times Trade XYZ’s SanDisk volume in the first minute, so the deepest pool of flow set the tone in a market with no reference price. Allocators using weekend contracts as a signal should treat Saturday prints as crypto-venue prices, and Monday’s quotes will set the discount.

The $52 million in liquidations was priced by crypto traders alone, with no stock quote to check it against. Trade XYZ’s own trading set the reference prices in the meantime. The test comes when U.S. markets open Monday, and the size of the gap to actual share prices is still unknown.

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