Crypto Shorts Lose $1.23 Billion in 1 Hour: 3 Bitcoin Whales Wiped Out

Crypto Shorts Lose $1.23 Billion in 1 Hour: 3 Bitcoin Whales Wiped Out Lockridge Okoth Wed, August 19, 2026 at 12:12 PM EDT 3 min read BTC-USD HYPE32196-USD ETH-USD Crypto short liquidations hit $1.23 billion in one hour as Bitcoin squeezes higher. Photo by BeInCrypto Crypto bears just had one of their worst hours of 2026. Short positions worth $1.23 billion were liquidated in 60 minutes as Bitcoin (BTC) climbed 2.5% to near $68,424. Three whale wallets on Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives exchange, absorbed $194 million of the damage. The forced buying added fuel to a rally that began in the bond market. Inside the $1.23 Billion Crypto Short Liquidations Total liquidations reached $1.31 billion in the hour, and shorts made up nearly all of it, per data from CoinGlass. Bitcoin positions accounted for roughly $770 million of the wipeout, with Ethereum (ETH) adding another $430 million. ETH itself gained 3.9% and traded back above $2,000, near $2,084. Crypto Liquidations. Source: Coinglass The 24-hour toll ran to $1.57 billion across 114,038 traders, with shorts making up $1.41 billion. The largest single order, an ETH position on Bitget, was worth $32.18 million. The biggest casualty on Hyperliquid was wallet 0x8c96, which lost its entire 1,800 BTC short worth about $117 million, per Hypurrscan records. Two more followed it out. Wallet 0x431f was wiped out with 677 BTC liquidated, roughly $44 million, per its history. A third account, 0x004e, lost 500 BTC worth about $3…