Crypto market brief · 2026-11-15

Leveraged longs lose the most in our window

Two heavy days in a row, and the second was bigger. Our streams recorded $1.45B of liquidations on Nov 14 across 12 venues and 298,003 events, the peak of our recent window. Bets on a higher price took $1.36B of it, 93.7%, against $91.7M for shorts.

$BTC led with $436.4M of long liquidations and $39.7M of short ones, and $ETH followed with $375.1M of longs. The largest single forced close was a $16.2M Ether position on Binance.

The total ran 28.2% above Nov 13's $1.13B and far above the 7 day average of $457.6M. These are recorded totals from public venue streams, a floor for the whole market.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-0110-liquidations-daily, data as of 2026-11-15 01:10 UTC

US buyers stay below global price for 71 days

Day 71 below zero. Bitcoin on Coinbase, where US buyers trade, closed Nov 14 at -0.049% under the global price. The gap is small, but the side hasn't changed in 71 straight days.

That close was lighter than the 7 day average of -0.116%. In the past 90 days the deepest discount came on Oct 29 at -0.271%, and the highest reading was +0.032% on Aug 27.

On the futures side, the current quarter contract is priced +6.27% annualized above spot, the extra traders pay to hold Bitcoin through expiry.

Since 2017, days in this low band saw a median +0.0% BTC move over the next 7d (n=674, base +0.5%, 9y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-1420-premium-daily, data as of 2026-11-15 14:20 UTC

AVAX longs squeezed out as bets drop 13.4%

Avalanche led the day's leverage exit. $AVAX open interest, the money held in open futures bets, dropped 13.4% over 24 hours as price fell 10.7%, a long squeeze.

$BTC traded at $64,741, down 3.37% on the day and -14.70% over 7 days, holding a 58.71% share of a $2.2T crypto market. Fear & Greed reads 10, extreme fear. US buyers have bid below the global price for 71 straight days.

Bitcoin order flow looks ordinary next to that mood. VPIN, a gauge of how one sided trading is, read 0.14, the 52nd percentile of 90 days. Our liquidity model scores the market 17, in the superposition state.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-0900-daily-brief, data as of 2026-11-15 09:00 UTC

Bitcoin hashrate fell 4.4% over the week

Mining power on the $BTC network was down 4.4% over the 7 days to Nov 14, and the 30 day change also reads -3.4%. Our node put the hashrate, the total computing power securing the chain, at 991 EH/s that day.

Difficulty, the bar a miner must clear to find a block, read 134.82T. The fee rate paid to get a transaction into a block was 1.0 sat/vB on Nov 14, and miners earned 356.9 BTC in total that day.

Since 2017, days in this very high band saw a median +0.0% BTC move over the next 7d (n=639, base +0.5%, 8y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-0540-network-daily, data as of 2026-11-14 00:20 UTC

Bitcoin jump forces out $19.9M of shorts

Bitcoin just jumped 3.09% in roughly an hour to $65,966, and nearly all the damage fell on traders who had bet on a fall.

In the last 60 minutes our streams recorded $19.9M of short positions forced shut, against only $384.6K of longs. These are recorded liquidations, so the full market figure is at least this large.

Even after the move, $BTC is still -1.5% over 24 hours, so the jump has not yet erased the day's losses.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-0911-event-price-shock, data as of 2026-11-15 09:11 UTC

Bitcoin shorts lose $15.7M in 30 minutes

Traders betting against Bitcoin just took a $15.7M hit. Over the last 30 minutes the major venues forcibly closed $BTC short positions, bets on a lower price whose margin could no longer cover the move.

The other side barely felt it. Leveraged longs lost $179.0K in the same window, so nearly all of the damage landed on sellers.

The totals come from the raw liquidation streams of the major venues.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-0907-event-liq-burst, data as of 2026-11-15 09:07 UTC

Selling pushes Solana deep into oversold

Selling has stretched $SOL further than almost any other Binance perpetual on daily candles. Its 14 day RSI reads 17.0, behind only $KAVA at 14.8. RSI scores how one sided recent price moves have been; 30 or under counts as oversold, 70 or above as overbought.

Solana is in a crowd. Of 400 crypto perps, 202 sit at or under 30 and only 12 at 70 or above, with the average reading at 37.0.

$HUMA ranks third at 17.4, down 5.2% over 24 hours, against a 2.4% drop for Solana.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-1630-rsi-daily, data as of 2026-11-15 16:22 UTC

Lira buyers pay up, mostly for the dollar

Across five Turkish exchanges on Nov 15, Bitcoin cost lira buyers +0.93% (+93.3 bps) more than the global dollar price at the official USD/TRY rate. The 24 hour average was +77.0 bps.

Nearly all of that gap is the dollar. USDT traded +92.7 bps above the official rate, last set on Nov 13, and the coin itself was priced only +0.5 bps over the world.

Every venue charged a premium. OKX TR was the dearest at +107.1 bps and Bitlo the cheapest at +81.2 bps. This is a price gap between markets, not a trade anyone can lock in at these numbers.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-11-15#2026-11-15-1520-turkey-daily, data as of 2026-11-15 15:20 UTC

A $9.4M Binance long led Bitcoin's liquidations

Leveraged longs took the single heaviest hit of Bitcoin's 24 hours to Nov 15. The largest recorded liquidation was a $9.4M long on Binance, over a window in which $BTC moved -6.67% to $63,723.

Across those 24 hours our collectors logged 15,330 recorded prints of $1K or more. Each print is a leveraged position an exchange closed for lack of margin, and they can come from either side of the market.

On the chart, the heatmap behind the candles is an estimate of where liquidations could sit. The prints on the candles are recorded.

OKX halts AVAX withdrawals on Avalanche

OKX has just suspended $AVAX withdrawals on the Avalanche C Chain network. The change shows on the exchange's own currency list, and our daily read caught it.

What is confirmed is a single outbound route. Deposits and other networks may still be working, and nothing yet shows the pause reaching beyond this one path.

A closed withdrawal route is usually the first public sign a venue gives when something needs fixing. Most of these pauses turn out to be routine maintenance.

Bitcoin shorts get squeezed in 30 minutes

The squeeze just ran against Bitcoin bears. In the last 30 minutes the major venues liquidated $3.5M of $BTC short positions, bets on a lower price that exchanges closed once the margin behind them could no longer cover the move.

Buyers on leverage were hit too, with $1.9M of $BTC long positions liquidated over the same half hour. Both figures are position values closed by the exchanges, measured from the raw liquidation streams of the major venues.

The heavier side this time was the one positioned for a drop.

Paradex switches its status to maintenance

Paradex has just put its own status page into maintenance. Our poll, which checks the venue every 5 minutes, recorded the switch.

Until Paradex reports ok again, orders sent to the venue may be rejected. Traders holding positions there may not be able to adjust them with new orders during that window.

The maintenance flag names no specific market or network, and Paradex has not yet reported ok.

Solana shorts squeezed for $1.1M

Solana short sellers took the heavier hit in the last 30 minutes. The major venues closed $1.1M of $SOL short positions, leveraged bets on a lower price that ran out of margin as the move went against them.

The buying side wasn't spared. $455.3K of leveraged $SOL longs were liquidated over the same half hour, but the bigger share of the pain landed on the bears.

These totals come from the raw liquidation streams of the major venues.

Leveraged longs took 96% of the damage

Bets on higher prices took almost all the damage on Binance's stock, commodity and index perpetuals on Nov 14. Of $99.63M in recorded forced closures, longs lost $96.1M and shorts $3.5M, a 96% longs / 4% shorts split across 236 contracts and 20,113 events.

Metals topped the list. Gold contracts saw $32.82M liquidated and silver $17.81M, and silver also carried the day's largest single closure at $995K. $SNDK came third with $7.26M.

The day's total was up +60% on Nov 13, when $62.40M was forced shut.

Polkadot longs pay far above borrow costs

On Bybit, $DOT perpetual longs were paying shorts 9.74% a year in funding, the fee that keeps their positions open, in the Nov 15 read at 05:29 UTC. Borrowing Polkadot on margin at the same venue cost only 2.52% a year.

That recorded gap of 7.22% was the widest funding over borrow spread across the 15 assets and 3 venues we track.

Borrowing dollars cost about the same everywhere. USDT on margin ran at a median 4% a year, from 3.97% on Bybit to 4.82% on Binance.

Put buyers outspent call buyers

Options buyers put $53.27M into puts, contracts that pay out if price falls, and only $11.60M into calls that pay on a rise. Over the day, money for protection far outweighed money for upside bets.

Half of that flow, 50%, came through block trades, large orders arranged privately away from the order book.

The single largest trade ran the opposite way. A seller wrote a $90,000 put expiring Dec 25 as a block, collecting $8.27M in premium and taking on the risk below that strike until expiry.

Aptos shorts pay most as positions grow

Aptos topped our extremes list on the morning of Nov 15. $APT shorts were paying longs -0.04% in funding, the periodic fee one side of a futures market pays the other, and open positions still grew 9.94% over 24 hours.

The same pattern showed up further down the list. $OP shorts paid -0.02% with positions up 6.22%, and $TRX shorts paid -0.02% with positions up 5.65%.

The long side was quiet by comparison. The highest rate longs paid was 0.01%, on Aave and Near.

Insurance funds shed $51.0M in a day

Exchange insurance funds are -4.41% lighter than a week ago, holding $6.61B across 10 venues at 09:00 UTC on Nov 15. The latest 24 hours took -$51.0M off the total, a -0.77% move.

OKX keeps the largest fund at $2.68B, and it changed -1.40% on the day. Bybit's came in at -1.62% to $1.03B and Gate's at -1.19%. Binance was the only one of the big funds to grow, at +0.36%, and Paradex posted the biggest move of any venue, at +1.67%.

These reserves pay for liquidations that close below a trader's bankruptcy price. Together they equal 18.75% of perpetual open interest, the leveraged positions still open, on the coins we track. Each balance is what the venue reports, not an audit.

Deribit settles Bitcoin futures at $63,993.28

Deribit's Sunday fixing at 08:00 UTC closed out Bitcoin's Nov 15 dated futures at $63,993.28 for the contract margined in USDC and $63,993.3 for the one margined in $BTC. Its $AVAX contract settled at $7.165. These three were the only dated futures settlements we recorded in the 24 hours to 09:15 UTC.

Monday, Nov 16, brings the next batch. Deribit has 13 Bitcoin delivery contracts and one $AVAX contract expiring, and Bullish has one Bitcoin contract.

Over the next 7 days, 134 dated futures expire across 15 venues, alongside 9,079 option contracts.

Sellers stack up just above Bitcoin's price

The largest sell order cluster across 21 spot books sits at $65.5K, just 0.05% above the $BTC mid as of 09:35 UTC on Nov 15. The largest buy cluster rests much lower, at $60.0K, 8.45% under the mid.

Buyers pulled back harder than sellers over the 24 hours to that reading. Resting bids within 2% of the mid fell 26.4%, offers in the same range fell 10%, and the book leans slightly to the sell side with a -1.7% imbalance. Price went from $67.4K to $65.5K over that stretch, a -2.8% move.

Resting orders can be cancelled at any time. This is a snapshot of the book, not a forecast.

Sellers edge out buyers in whale flow

The biggest traders split nearly down the middle in the 24 hours to 10:00 UTC on Nov 15. Large sells totalled $23.99B and large buys $21.27B, a 47% buyer share. That sits inside the two sided range rather than a clear seller lead.

Bitcoin carried the weight. Of the 15,264 whale sized trades, 9,396 landed on $BTC, and the largest single sweep, a run of same side orders added together, came to $90.9M there.

Shorts carry most of the nearby liquidation risk

Short sellers carry most of the estimated liquidation risk within 3% of Bitcoin's price. $BTC traded at $65,551 at 11:00 UTC on Nov 15, and the modeled map leans to the upside.

Above the market, the closest modeled cluster of short liquidations is at $65,952 and the largest at $66,234. A rise into those levels would force those traders to buy back.

Below, the nearest modeled long cluster is at $64,732 and the largest sits further down at $61,728.

Jupiter traders lean 84% long

On Jupiter Perps, bets on a higher price far outweigh bets on a fall, with $52.1M in long positions against $10.3M in shorts, 84% long overall. Hyperliquid's top 300 whales lean the other way. Across 259 accounts, only 43.1% of their notional is long.

$SOL carries most of the Jupiter long side, at $33.7M long versus $5.7M short. $BTC holds $16.2M long against $3.6M short.

The week of Nov 9 to Nov 15 had its winners. The top $SOL trader, wallet 2etq…P3XA, realized $973.7K on $14.5M of volume. The leading $ETH wallet made $268.7K but needed $69.0M of volume to get there.

Avalanche traders cut leverage the hardest

Altcoin traders pulled leverage much harder than Bitcoin traders in the 24 hours to Nov 15, 11:35 UTC. All ten large coins we track lost both price and open interest, the value of futures bets still open.

Avalanche led the exit. $AVAX open interest fell 12.69% as price dropped 10.34%. Litecoin followed at -9.29% on a -6.28% move, and $SOL bets shrank 7.64% against a 4.89% price drop.

$BTC barely moved by comparison, with open interest down 2.67% and price down 2.9%. Ether, BNB and Cardano also stayed in the 3% to 6% range on both measures.

No Satoshi era coins moved this week

None of the 34,121 Satoshi era outputs we watch moved in the week to Nov 15. Those early pay to public key coins hold 1.71 million BTC between them.

Across the whole chain, 1.94 million BTC sits in outputs whose public key is already visible on chain, the kind a future quantum computer could target. That is 9.63% of all bitcoin by value and 33.97% of outputs by count, measured on our own node at block 975,881.

Exposure here describes how coins are locked, not when or whether such a machine arrives.

Hyperliquid whales lean short on Bitcoin

The largest Bitcoin traders on Hyperliquid have more money riding on a fall than on a rise. Across 259 large accounts, $662.73M sits in short positions on $BTC against $488.30M in longs, so bets on a higher price make up 42% of the total.

This is a snapshot of open positions held by the biggest accounts on one venue. It is not the whole market and not a change from yesterday. It weighs the dollar size of the bets, not how many traders sit on each side, so a handful of large shorts can tilt the split.

Short bets carry more risk overhead on Ether

Above the $1,835 $ETH price at 13:00 UTC on Nov 15, the modeled map carries more liquidation exposure than below it, counting only levels within 3% of price. That side belongs to short positions, which would be forced to buy back if price reached them.

The nearest modeled short level is $1,850, and the largest cluster above is $1,889. Below price, the closest estimated long level is $1,805, with the largest at $1,763.

These levels are estimates built from open interest and leverage, not recorded liquidations.

Bitcoin and Ether trade back inside value

Bitcoin and Ether both closed Nov 14 below the band where most of that session's trade happened. Both now trade back inside it, near its lower edge.

$BTC spent the most time at $67,204.49, its point of control. Its value area, the range that held 70% of the session's time, ran from $65,139.03 to $67,836.08. It closed at $64,130.50, -4.57% from that level, and trades at $65,472.00.

$ETH centred on $1,903.65, with a value area from $1,822.14 to $1,938.86. Its close of $1,768.36 sat -7.11% from that price, and it now trades at $1,832.19.

Chainlink's book charged the most for size

Chainlink had the most expensive book to trade size in on Nov 15. At 14:00 UTC a $1.0M market order in $LINK gave up 21.7 bps, the highest cost of the eight books we read. In $BTC the same order cost 1.2 bps.

That cost is slippage, how far the fill lands from the quoted price as the order eats through resting bids or asks. $ADA sat just behind at 21.5 bps, then Dogecoin at 11.4 bps and BNB at 10.7 bps. On the deep side, Ether cost 1.9 bps, Solana 3.9 bps and XRP 7.8 bps.

Thin books matter most when liquidations hit. A forced order of that size moves Chainlink or Cardano far more than Bitcoin, whichever side is being closed.

Bitcoin's biggest buy wall rests 8.45% lower

The biggest block of buy orders under $BTC on Nov 15 rested far from the price. There was $36.8M near $60.0K, 8.45% below the $65.5K mark, and the largest sell wall sat right above the price, $24.5M at $65.6K, 0.15% higher.

Closer in, buyers still had more resting. Within 2% of price across 21 spot venues at 13:55 UTC, $130.9M of bids faced $117.7M of offers, a 5.3% lean toward the bid side.

$ETH was boxed in. Walls of $13.5M bid and $14.3M offered rested 0.15% either side of the $1.8K price, with a 3% lean toward buyers.

These are resting orders, not trades, and they can be pulled.

All 2,016 windows sealed on Solana this week

Every five minute window from Nov 8 to Nov 15 was sealed and written to Solana, all 2,016 of them over 7 days, a coverage of 100%. The median wait from the end of a window to its Solana block was 55 seconds.

No window was missed. A handful of anchors, 4 in total, landed later than 120 seconds, and 7 daily attestations were written to Base. Across the week, 258,048 records in our Data Layer catalog were hashed into those signed roots.

For a trader, this means anyone can check every epoch from the Solana and Base chains alone, without relying on us. It shows the numbers were not changed after sealing, not that they are correct.

Longs pile into EVAA on a short board

Seven of the eight names on our pressure board lean short in the 24 hours to 15:00 UTC on Nov 15, yet the top score is a long. Open bets on $EVAA grew 31.34% and longs pay 0.07% in funding, the periodic charge they hand shorts to keep the position open.

On the short side, $KAVA added 26.85% in open bets while shorts pay 0.13%, a crowd building on one side with new money. $INIT carries the steepest charge on the board at -0.17%, with open bets up only 1.03%.

INJ and LINK show the opposite. Open bets fell 9.49% and 7.48%, with funding near flat, which is leverage leaving rather than building.

Sellers added depth as Ether bids thinned

Sellers thickened the $ETH spot book over the 24 hours to 15:35 UTC on Nov 15. Asks within 2% of the price grew 12%, and bids thinned by 10% as Ether slipped 1.6%, from $1,840.22 to $1,810.97.

Across 21 spot venues, $68.80M of bids rested against $74.43M of asks in that range, leaving sellers 3.9% heavier.

The two largest walls sit close to the price. Buyers hold $15.35M at $1,808.25, 0.15% below mid, and sellers hold $14.91M at $1,815.50, 0.25% above. This is a snapshot, and resting orders can be pulled at any time.

WIF funding splits widest across venues

The same $WIF long costs very different amounts depending on where it's held. Kraken was the cheapest venue to be long on Nov 15, and the highest rate we track sat 0.09% per 8 hours above it, the biggest gap among the coins on our board.

Each exchange sets its own funding, the recurring fee that flows between longs and shorts on perpetual futures. That means one coin can carry several prices to hold.

$BNB and $LINK each showed a 0.08% gap, with Backpack against DigiFinex for BNB and HTX against ApeX for Chainlink. Cardano followed at 0.06%.

Our model puts WIF's gap at 90.51% a year after fees, assuming the spread held unchanged all year. That figure is modeled, not a recorded return.

Ether shorts squeezed for $5.0M in 30 minutes

Ether's short side just took the hit. Over the last 30 minutes the major venues forcibly closed $5.0M of $ETH short positions. These were leveraged bets on a lower price, shut once their margin could no longer cover the move up.

Leveraged buyers barely felt it. Long liquidations came to $187.2K in the same window.

These totals come from the raw liquidation streams of the major venues, so they count what those venues reported rather than the whole market.