Crude oil just had its biggest day in history, and traders who were short or made bearish bets over the weekend paid the price.
Tokenized oil perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid saw nearly $40 million in liquidations in the last 24 hours, according to Coinglass, of which $36.9 million came from short positions that were wiped out as crude rose roughly 30% in a dramatic escalation of the conflict with Iran.
The CL-USDC contract on Hyperliquid jumped to $114.77, up almost 20% in 24 hours. The USOIL-USDH pair hit $135, up 9% on the day after rising earlier in the week.
The oil movement overshadowed everything else in commodities. Brent and WTI are trading at levels not seen since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the single-day percentage gain is on track to be the largest in oil market history.
The catalyst was a weekend that went from bad to catastrophic. Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader, replacing his father, who was killed in the first wave of attacks. Israel launched a new round of attacks against Iranian and Hezbollah infrastructure.
Iranian missiles and drones expanded beyond Israel to reach Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, killing two people near Riyadh and targeting energy infrastructure. Iraq’s oil production fell by approximately 60%. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reduced production due to the collapse of oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Anyone who sold oil in that context was executed. The $36.9 million in short liquidations in 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 reaching $364.4 million. Bitcoin accounted for $156.67 million of that figure, ether contributed $70.88 million, and Solana added $19.8 million.
Long liquidations outweighed shorts by $215 million versus $149 million, reflecting the broader sell-off in cryptocurrencies as risk assets fell on the rally. The largest liquidation was a $6.88 million BTC-USD position on Hyperliquid.
Crypto perpetual markets are increasingly used by traders to express macro views on oil, metals and currencies, attracted by 24/7 access, lower margin requirements and the ability to trade on weekends when traditional commodity markets are closed.
When the missiles start flying on a Saturday, the Hyperliquid oil contract is one of the only places in the world where you can get leveraged exposure to crude oil.
Open interest in the CL-USDC contract stood at $195 million with 24-hour volume of $570 million, figures that would have been unthinkable for a tokenized commodity a year ago. The USOIL pair had $4.1 million in open interest with $16.2 million in volume, smaller but growing.
