Bitcoin futures position worth $4.9 Million margin called on OKCoin, trader loses $250,000-500,000

There was a monster selloff in bitcoin today, and the traders on OKCoin at 10x, 20x are feeling the volatility.

Today one trader in particular got margin called on a position that was 49,000 Contracts on Bitcoin Quarterly June 24 contract. Note: for OKCoin's bitcoin futures, each contract is worth $100.

The trader has to have at least 5% margin to use the maximum leverage of 20x, so it implies that the trader lost at least $245,000 worth of bitcoin in collateral backing the position. They likely lost more, at 10x it would be nearly half a million dollars of bitcoin lost.

It's worth noting that this person could be using the futures to hedge his position so it's not necessarily a loss if they were offsetting some short exposure. Here's how the market moved on OKCoin futures:

The drop was pretty steep. The market was trading at $490 on quarterlies while spot was about $468. The drop was all the way down to $455, a 7% fall and plenty to margin call traders who were anywhere from 10-20x leveraged long.

This should be a warning to all traders: Be careful using high leverage out there!