Briefs · Emerging Technologies
$19 billion vanished in a day
The largest liquidation in crypto history did not start with crypto. It started with a tariff.
On 10 October, President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on Chinese imports, in response to China’s export controls on rare earths. Within 24 hours, some $19.1 billion in leveraged crypto positions had been unwound — $16.7 billion of them long positions — and 1.6 million traders were affected. Bitcoin fell from an intraweek high near $126,000 to $101,500; Ethereum dropped to $3,373.67. The total crypto market lost about $400 billion in value.
The tariff was the spark, but leverage was the fuel. When prices fell, exchanges auto-closed undercollateralised positions, which pushed prices down further, which closed more positions. Hyperliquid alone reported $10.28 billion in liquidations, including a single $203 million ETH position. The event dwarfed the COVID crash of 2020 ($1.2 billion) and the FTX collapse of 2022 ($1.6 billion) — by more than ten times.
Officially, this was a market correction. Unofficially, it was a margin call on an entire asset class.
Conclusion: crypto is not a hedge, but rather a leveraged bet — tariff-triggered turmoil, and the bill came due in a day.
Read the original at AInvest, citing Coin360
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