Crypto’s Black Friday

Core Insights - The digital asset market experienced its largest liquidation event on October 10, termed as crypto's Black Friday, with over $19 billion in leveraged positions liquidated [1] - The sell-off was triggered by President Trump's announcement of a proposed 100% tariff on Chinese imports, leading to global risk aversion across various asset classes [2] - Bitcoin, ether, and solana saw significant price drops, with bitcoin falling to $106,560, ether to $3,551, and solana to $174, while smaller-cap tokens dropped more than 75% intraday [2] Market Dynamics & Scale of Deleveraging - Total perpetual futures open interest decreased by 43%, from $217 billion on October 10 to $123 billion by October 11, marking the largest single-day contraction on Hyperliquid with a 57% decline [3] - Approximately $16 billion of the $19 billion total liquidations originated from long positions, with most traders using 2x leverage or higher without stop-losses [4] Structural Stress & Order Book Collapse - The event highlighted the interconnectedness of liquidity, collateral, and oracle systems, evolving into a market-wide stress event as prices hit key liquidation levels [6] - Market depth collapsed by over 80% across major exchanges within minutes, with large-cap assets like ATOM experiencing near-zero bids due to market makers withdrawing liquidity [7] - The shared collateral across assets and reliance on local price feeds amplified volatility, affecting even well-capitalized platforms as liquidity disappeared [7]