On Saturday, October 17, 2026, while U.S. equity markets were closed for the weekend, crypto derivatives venues recorded more than $33 million in liquidations tied to AI chip stocks, with leveraged long positions absorbing most of the losses, according to a Stocktwits report citing CoinGlass data, updated October 18, 2026. Contracts tracking the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) led with $13.05 million liquidated over 24 hours, followed by SanDisk at roughly $11.98 million — 95% of it from longs — Micron at about $4.45 million, and SK Hynix at $3.77 million. More than 4,000 traders were liquidated across five chip-linked contracts, per the same report.

What makes the episode structurally interesting is the clock, not the dollar figure. The losses occurred in perpetual futures — contracts with no expiration date that track the price of a stock — while the underlying cash market was shut, with major centralized exchanges offering around-the-clock trading (Stocktwits). Perp venues keep marking and margining these contracts when the stock exchange is closed, so a position can reach its liquidation price on a Saturday. Margin requirements, mark-price methods and risk limits for stock-linked perps differ by venue and by contract, and they may not match the rules for crypto-native perps, so traders need to read the specific contract terms rather than assume one standard. Weekend liquidity can also be thinner than during cash-market hours, which can make prices more sensitive to large orders.

The timing data is notable, but it does not by itself show a cascade. All five chip-linked contracts reached their liquidation peaks in the same Saturday hour, and a single exchange accounted for more than half of the losses on each contract (Stocktwits). Contracts on closely related chip names would be expected to react to the same price move at the same time, so simultaneous peaks may simply reflect one shared move rather than liquidations in one contract triggering the next. The report does not separate those explanations.

SOXL adds a separate consideration. The ETF itself seeks three times the daily performance of a chip-stock index (Stocktwits). That embedded daily leverage can amplify an adverse move in the benchmark before any additional leverage on the perp position is counted. The resulting liquidation risk still depends on the position's direction and on the venue's margin and mark-price rules.

The wider crypto market leaned the same way. Three large centralized exchanges tracked by TokenPost logged $198.2 million in liquidations in the 24 hours through 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, October 17, with long positions at 77% of the total (TokenPost, published October 17, 2026 ET). TokenPost's exchange-level tally also lists SOXL and SOXS among the larger liquidated tickers; its figures cover three exchanges and differ from the CoinGlass-based totals cited by Stocktwits, so the two sets of numbers are not directly comparable.

The practical point is that perpetuals keep leveraged exposure to equities open when the underlying market is closed. A position held over the weekend can be liquidated before the stock market reopens, at prices set by activity on the perp venue rather than on the stock exchange, under rules that vary from venue to venue. Traders using these contracts should size positions and keep margin buffers with weekend moves in mind, not only weekday ones.

Go deeper

  • How liquidations work — liquidation price mechanics, margin requirements, and how forced closure happens on a perp venue.
  • What is leverage trading — how leverage amplifies gains and losses symmetrically, and why position sizing matters more than direction.
  • What are perpetual futures — no expiry, 24/7 trading, and how perps differ from spot and dated futures.