In the early Asian hours, crypto markets saw almost $242M in liquidations as markets responded to Russian forces marching deeper into Ukraine in a “special military operation” described by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Liquidations of bitcoin-tracked futures totaled $72 million, the biggest of any cryptocurrency, followed by ether futures at $70M. Altcoin-tracked futures experienced fewer liquidations than bitcoin and ether, with losses of $6.46 million on Solana’s SOL futures, $5.18 million on XRP futures, and $6.81 million on Dogecoin’s DOGE futures.

In the crypto market, liquidations occur when a trader lacks sufficient cash to satisfy a margin call – or a demand from the exchange for additional collateral to maintain the trading position funded. Because of the extreme volatility of assets, they’re especially common in high-risk trading. It can happen in margin and futures trading.

Most Liquidations

Over $411 million in liquidations have occurred in the last 24 hours as a result of Thursday’s actions. A total of 114,700 traders were liquidated, with the largest single liquidation order, a LINK trade worth over $3.21M, taking place on OKX.

OKX had the most liquidations, at $73 million, followed by Binance with $48 million and Bybit with $24M.

According to statistics from analytics service Coinglass, over 87 percent of all liquidated traders were ‘long’ the market, or betting on higher prices.

In the early Asian hours, the overall market value of cryptocurrencies fell nearly 7.8%, with Bitcoin falling nearly 8% and stock futures in Asia and Europe falling 1.5 percent on average.

According to reports, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin stated in an early morning broadcast that the “special military operation” in Ukraine was aimed at “demilitarising and denazification of Ukraine.”