If you looked away from crypto markets on Friday, then you missed a record-breaking bloodbath.
Following a Friday morning threat from U.S. President Donald Trump to unleash “massive” new trade tariffs on China, crypto prices began to plunge alongside stocks, representing widespread concern from investors. And then crypto declines rapidly accelerated late in the afternoon when Trump ratcheted up his threats in a follow-up post on Truth Social.
Most crypto assets were suddenly in freefall. Bitcoin had been sitting above the $121,000 mark on Friday morning, but ultimately dipped below $106,000 in the afternoon, according to CoinGecko.
Altcoins were hit much harder. Ethereum went from $4,300 on Friday morning to a multi-month low under $3,600 in the afternoon, while assets like Dogecoin and Cardano briefly showed 40% daily dips before recovering some of the losses. And top 100 coins (by market cap) like Story (IP) and Worldcoin (WORLD) were down more than 50% in an hour at one point.
Amid the carnage, a record tally of crypto positions were wiped out across the market, generating more than $19 billion worth of liquidations in 24 hours, according to data from CoinGlass—by far a record. The vast majority were long positions, or bets that an asset’s price would increase—nearly $17 billion worth, as of this writing.
Red Uptober? Crypto Liquidations Top $1 Billion as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana Erase Gains
Across social media, industry experts recalled past “black swan” events that triggered mass liquidations, such as approximately $1.2 billion worth in 2020 when markets reacted to Covid-19 shutdowns, and about $1.6 billion worth in 2022 when crypto exchange FTX suddenly collapsed.
Friday’s total was a more than 10x multiple of both figures, representing significant growth across crypto markets in recent years—and perhaps a sizable risk appetite that has developed as top assets popped to record high prices of late. And that $19 billion total might be well short of reality, due to data reporting limits.
“The largest liquidation event in crypto history,” CoinGlass wrote on X late Friday. “In the past 24 hours, 1,618,240 traders were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $19.13 billion. The actual total is likely much higher—Binance only reports one liquidation order per second.”
Top assets have recovered some ground since Friday’s lows, but remain well off their recent marks.
Bitcoin is currently down nearly 8% on the day at a price just above $112,000, while Ethereum shows a 12% daily loss at $3,816 and XRP is down 13% to $2.45. Among the top 10 assets by market cap, Dogecoin took the biggest hit, falling 24% over the last day to $0.19, with Solana nursing an 18% hit to $183.
Myriad users expect that it will continue to be a bumpy weekend for Bitcoin, at least, predicting a 56% chance that the top crypto asset sees more red candles than green before Monday rolls around. (Disclaimer: Myriad is a product of Decrypt‘s parent company, DASTAN.)
