The “$19B in liquidations” refers to the massive October 10, 2025, event often called “10/10”, widely seen as the largest single-day wipeout in crypto history.
On that day, leveraged positions across exchanges got obliterated to the tune of roughly $19 billion with some estimates slightly higher, mostly longs as Bitcoin plunged from highs around $126K toward $100K–$110K levels in a rapid cascade.
Over 1.6 million traders were liquidated, and it triggered a broader market drawdown that’s lingered into 2026, with BTC recently hovering much lower amid ongoing volatility. Binance’s Co-CEO Richard Teng recently addressed it at Consensus Hong Kong and in interviews pushing back hard against accusations that Binance caused or amplified it through platform issues, API locks, or internal mechanics.
His line: it was driven by macro shocks—specifically U.S.-China trade tensions, new tariffs announced by Trump, rare-earth export controls from China, and a broader risk-off sentiment that also hammered equities; $1.5T lost in U.S. stocks that day, with $150B in stock liquidations.
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He emphasized the liquidations hit every major exchange (CEXs and DEXs alike), not just Binance, around 9 p.m. ET, and compared crypto’s smaller scale to tradfi’s pain. Traders and skeptics aren’t buying it fully—your “dog ate my homework” analogy popped up directly in reactions.
Many see it as exchanges finger-pointing: “It wasn’t us, it was the macro,” while downplaying how extreme leverage— 50x–125x on some platforms, thin liquidity, and automatic deleveraging mechanics turned a macro trigger into a full meltdown.
Some accuse specific platforms of outages, forced liquidations at worst prices, or benefiting from the chaos via fees. It’s a fair meme because crypto’s leverage culture + centralized platforms make these cascades feel engineered or at least enabled internally, even if the spark was external geopolitics.
The real lesson: High leverage in volatile assets means macro sneezes can cause crypto pneumonia—and everyone points elsewhere when the bodies hit the floor. The October 10, 2025 (“10/10”) liquidation event—with roughly $19 billion in leveraged positions wiped out across exchanges—had profound and lingering impacts on the crypto market, extending well into 2026.
It wasn’t just a one-day flash crash; it reshaped market structure, sentiment, liquidity, and price dynamics. Bitcoin plunged from highs around $126,000 to lows near $104,000–$102,000 intraday down ~15–20%, with Ethereum dropping ~12–21% and altcoins like Solana suffering 30–40%+ drawdowns.
Total crypto market cap shed $350–400 billion in a day, the largest single-day drop on record. Over 1.6 million traders got rekt, with longs dominating ~83–90% of the wipeout. This created a vicious cascade: forced sells thinned order books (bid-ask spreads exploded, depth dropped 90%+ on some venues), amplifying volatility and contagion across assets.
The macro trigger (Trump’s 100% tariff threat on Chinese imports, plus China’s rare-earth export controls) hit equities too—U.S. stocks lost ~$1.5–2 trillion that day. Crypto, as a high-beta risk asset, amplified the pain due to extreme leverage (often 50x+).
Exchanges saw API issues, network congestion; Ethereum gas spikes delaying arbitrage), and temporary halts/withdrawal freezes on some platforms. This fueled blame games, with accusations of glitches or internal mechanics worsening the cascade.
BTC has yet to reclaim its October highs, trading significantly lower; recently in the $60,000s–$78,000s range, down 40–50% from peak. The event marked a structural shift from leverage-fueled bull to deleveraging-driven correction.
Futures open interest cratered from peaks >$90B to much lower levels, volatility persistence stayed high, and forced liquidations distorted price discovery for months. Market makers got “stuffed” with coins post-crash, leading to the thinnest liquidity since 2022.
Trading slowed, bid depth evaporated, and recovery became choppy/sideways. This extended consolidation, with some analysts predicting BTC stuck in ranges until mid-2026 or later. Fear & Greed Index plunged to extreme lows post-event.
Retail trauma lingered (“nothing has been the same after 10/10”), killing demand for high-leverage plays. Institutions pulled back on exposure, ETF inflows slowed/reversed in spots, and confidence in centralized platforms eroded amid ongoing exchange feuds.
It exposed fragility in leverage mechanics, cross-asset contagion (stronger than 2018 trade war spillovers), and geopolitical macro risks. Calls grew for dynamic margin buffers, cross-exchange circuit breakers, and better macro-prudential tools. Some see it as accelerating a shift toward spot/HODL over perps.
Smaller liquidation waves continued into 2026; $2–3B+ in early February, showing heightened sensitivity to risk-off events. Cumulative liquidations since 10/10 likely exceed $70–120B+, deepening the drawdown. In essence, 10/10 acted like a “great deleveraging” purge—painful but arguably necessary to clear over-leveraged excess.
Yet the recovery has been slow and uneven, with macro/geopolitical shadows (trade tensions) and structural scars (thin liquidity, shaken trust) keeping the market fragile. It’s turned what could have been a quick dip into a multi-month grind, with many viewing it as the true start of a bear phase rather than a bull correction.