The crash was sparked by President Trump’s new tariff threats against China.
It was a brutal and historic bloodbath, a sudden and violent purge that resulted in what one analyst has called “the largest single-day wipeout in crypto history.”
A promising “Uptober” rally was brought to a catastrophic halt on Friday as a geopolitical bombshell from the White House sent a shockwave of fear through the global markets, triggering a cascade of liquidations that erased nearly $20 billion from the digital asset space in a single day.
The carnage was swift and merciless. Over a harrowing seven-hour period, Bitcoin plunged from the relative safety of $121,000 to a grim low of $109,000.
The pain was felt across the market, with Ethereum dipping to $3,686 and Solana touching just above $173.
But the real story was in the leveraged positions that were being systematically annihilated.
The volatile session triggered a “flash crash of liquidations,” wiping out almost 7 billion across all markets within a single hour, with a staggering 5.5 billion of that coming from bullish long positions, Sean Dawson, head of research at Dervie, told Decrypt.
By the time the dust settled, the majority of the day’s nearly 20 billion in liquidations — a colossal 16.7 billion — had come from longs, according to CoinGlass data.
This was not a crypto-specific crisis; it was a contagion of fear sparked by the highest office in the United States.
The sell-off across both crypto and traditional markets followed President Trump’s stunning announcement that he was canceling a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and had ordered a “massive increase” in tariffs on Chinese imports.
The threat, which Trump himself acknowledged could be “potentially painful” for Americans, immediately sent risk assets into a tailspin.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq dipped 3.6 percent, the S&P 500 fell 2.7 percent, and the Dow dropped 1.9 percent, a clear sign that the market was taking the president’s words as a declaration of a new and more aggressive phase in the trade war.
But just as quickly as the storm descended, a fragile calm began to return.
By the weekend, China appeared to soften its stance, and a market that had been gripped by panic began to recalibrate, with analysts suggesting the brutal rout may have been a brief, if violent, geopolitical overreaction.
Now, a powerful rebound is underway. “What we’re seeing is a textbook relief rally,” Dean Serroni, CEO of crypto investment manager Merkle Tree Capital, told Decrypt.
The recovery has been as swift as the crash was brutal. Bitcoin has surged 5% on the day to retake the $115,100 level.
Ethereum is leading the charge with an impressive 10.5% jump to $4,138, while major altcoins like Solana, BNB, and Dogecoin are soaring with double-digit gains.
Serroni explained the powerful bounce as “pure short-covering and mean reversion after the market overreacted to Trump’s tariff bombshell.”
He pointed to the “thin” selling pressure and the dramatic reset in open interest across derivatives markets, a sign that the carnage was primarily a technical event, a violent purge of “overleveraged derivatives traders” rather than a fundamental shift in the market’s long-term outlook.
His final verdict was a succinct and powerful summary of a wild and historic week: “This rout was a geopolitical knee-jerk, not a structural break.”
