The CEO of Bybit believes the crypto market’s recent correction pushed liquidations to nearly $10 billion, surpassing prior expectations.
CoinGlass data reveals that traders liquidated over $2.24 billion in crypto within a 24-hour span on February 3.
Ben Zhou, Bybit’s CEO and co-founder, argued that the actual amount could be five times higher than reported.
“Bybit’s 24hr liquidation alone was $2.1 billion,” Zhou wrote in a Feb. 3 X post.
“I am afraid that today’s real total liquidation is a lot more than $2 billion, by my estimation, it should be at least around $8 billion -10 billion,” he said.
The multibillion-dollar liquidation in the crypto market coincided with escalating fears of a global trade war. President Donald Trump intensified these concerns by signing an executive order on February 1 that imposed import tariffs on goods from China, Canada, and Mexico, according to a White House statement.
Trump announced on Saturday that he would enforce a 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports and a 10% tariff on Chinese goods.
The president framed the tariffs as part of a broader strategy to enhance border security and combat the opioid crisis, particularly fentanyl trafficking.
Economists warn that Trump’s new tariffs will increase consumer costs as businesses pass on additional expenses.
While the White House insists these measures will strengthen American manufacturing, experts caution that they could worsen inflation and trigger a trade conflict affecting all nations involved, leading to job losses and supply chain disruptions.
The announcement of these tariffs triggered volatility in the crypto market as investors reacted to fears of rising inflationary pressures.
The limitations in the APIs of cryptocurrency exchanges likely caused the differing crypto liquidation statistics.
Zhou explained that these API limitations led platforms like CoinGlass to report Bybit’s liquidations as $333 million instead of the actual $2.1 billion.
“We have API limitation on how many feeds are pushed out per second. From my observation, other exchanges also practice the same to limit liquidation data.”
“Moving forward, Bybit will start to PUSH all liquidation data. We believe in transparency,” Zhou said.
The multibillion-dollar crypto liquidation event affected more than 730,000 traders.
The most significant single liquidation order, worth $25.6 million in an ETH/BTC trade, occurred on Binance, according to CoinGlass.
However, the recent crypto market correction created profitable opportunities for some traders, who earned millions. While the market has recovered a little, the pains of the liquidation still lingers.
