Crypto’s $19 Billion Wipeout Shows Risks of Centralization
Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance Holdings Ltd., during an event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.
Photographer: Samsul Said/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Emily Nicolle takes a look at the risk beyond the headlines of last week’s crypto market chaos.
Crypto’s recent rash of crypto liquidations has highlighted a longstanding tension in an industry supposedly built on decentralization: Just three exchanges were responsible for the bulk of the $19 billion in liquidated leveraged bets that were wiped out late Friday.
More than $10 billion of those trades were on Hyperliquid, a rising star in decentralized finance, while another $4.6 billion traded on Bybit and $2.4 billion were unwound on Binance, according to Coinglass data.