Crude oil just had its biggest day in history, and traders shorting or taking bearish bets on it over the weekend paid the price.
Tokenized oil contracts on Hyperliquid recorded nearly $40 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, per Coinglass, $36.9 million of which came from short positions that were wiped out like crude oil, rose by approx. 30% on a dramatic escalation of the Iran conflict.
The CL-USDC contract on Hyperliquid jumped to $114.77, up nearly 20% in 24 hours. The USOIL-USDH pair hit $135, up 9% on the day after already rising earlier in the week.
The oil movement worsened everything else in commodities. Brent and WTI are trading at levels not seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the one-day percentage increase is on track to become the largest in oil market history.
The catalyst was a weekend that went from bad to disastrous. Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader, replacing his father, who was killed in the initial wave of strikes. Israel launched a new round of attacks on Iranian and Hezbollah infrastructure.
Iranian missiles and drones expanded beyond Israel to hit Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, killing two people near Riyadh and targeting energy infrastructure. Iraq’s oil production fell by about 60%. Kuwait and the UAE trimmed production as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed.
Anyone who shorted oil in that background got carried away. The $36.9 million in short liquidations on the CL contract alone made oil one of the largest single-asset liquidation events on Hyperliquid outside of bitcoin and ether on Sunday.
Across the broader crypto market, CoinGlass data shows that 94,058 traders were liquidated in the last 24 hours with total losses of $364.4 million. Bitcoin accounted for $156.67 million of that, ether contributed $70.88 million and solana added $19.8 million.
Long liquidations outnumbered shorts by $215 million to $149 million, reflecting the broader selloff in crypto as risk assets fell on the escalation. The largest single liquidation was a $6.88 million BTC-USD position on Hyperliquid.
Traders are increasingly using crypto perpetual markets to express macro views on oil, metals and currencies, drawn by 24/7 access, lower margin requirements and the ability to trade on weekends when traditional commodity markets are closed.
When missiles start flying on a Saturday, Hyperliquid’s oil contract is one of the only places in the world where you can get leveraged exposure to crude oil.
Open interest on the CL-USDC contract stood at $195 million with $570 million in 24-hour volume, figures that would have been unthinkable for a tokenized commodity product a year ago. The USOIL pair had $4.1 million in open interest with $16.2 million in volume, less but growing.
