Chip-stock bets lost $52 million in 10 minutes with Wall Street shut
Source: CoinDesk ·
From the source
A 10-minute flush hit round-the-clock chip-stock contracts while U.S. markets were shut, leaving traders with no real share price to lean on. A sudden wave of selling wiped out nearly $52 million in crypto traders’ leveraged bets on chip stocks in 10 minutes on Saturday, while the shares themselves sat idle with Wall Street closed for the weekend. Those bets were placed through perpetual futures, contracts that track a stock’s price and trade around the clock on crypto exchanges, so traders can buy and sell chip stocks on a Saturday night. A trader who borrows to make a bigger bet gets closed out automatically when losses eat through their deposit, and the forced selling can push prices lower for the next trader in line. About $51.6 million in positions tied to chip stocks and semiconductor funds were force-closed between 21:22 and 21:32 UTC, according to CoinGlass data, and about $38 million of that came from traders betting on higher prices. SOXL, a fund that triples the daily…