Riset terverifikasi sumber: Hyperliquid / OKX

What happened on 10 October 2025

Bitcoin had set a record above $126,000 a few days earlier. On the morning of 10 October 2025 it was trading near $122,600. Within hours it fell below $105,000, much of the drop coming in minutes during thin Friday-evening U.S. trading after President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, according to CoinDesk. More than $19 billion of leveraged positions were force-closed that day, the largest liquidation event the market has recorded.

The mechanism matters more than the headline. A liquidation happens when losses on a leveraged position eat through the margin posted for it, so the exchange closes the position automatically. Those forced sales hit an already falling market and push the price toward the next cluster of liquidation levels. Analysts quoted by CoinDesk describe the 2025 move as driven by derivatives positioning rather than on-chain selling: open interest was near historic highs and most traders were positioned for further gains.

Order books one year later

CoinDesk Research compared resting liquidity on major centralized exchanges on four dates: 1 January 2025, 10 October 2025, 1 January 2026 and the week of 7 October 2026. "Depth" here means the dollar value of buy and sell orders sitting near the current price, which is what a large market order eats through.

Our arithmetic from those ratios puts crash-day bitcoin 1% depth near $6.7 million and ether 1% depth near $3 million.

The bitcoin gain is not a price effect. Bitcoin is about a third cheaper than before the crash, so a book that is larger in dollars means market makers have committed more capital, not just that coins got cheaper. Most of the improvement sits close to the price: at 5% away, bitcoin depth of about $24 million is roughly where it was in January 2025. Ether's tightest band more than doubled from crash day, and its 1% band rose by about three-quarters.

The rebuilt books were tested this week. During the 8 October selloff, bitcoin's 1% depth fell about 12% from the 7 October reading, and ether's tightest band thinned slightly while orders further from the price increased.

Altcoins and spot volume went the other way

For a basket of altcoins tracked by CoinDesk Research, dollar depth peaked on 1 January 2025 and was lower on every date measured since. Depth 5% from the price is down about a third, to around $2 million, and depth within 1% is down about a sixth. Measured in tokens, the picture looks healthier, but that is mostly because token prices fell, which hides a steady erosion in the capital committed to those books.

Spot trading has not recovered. Weekly spot volume on centralized exchanges averaged about $279 billion over the four weeks to 27 September 2026, compared with $801 billion in the crash week. It bottomed near $135 billion a week in August and has roughly doubled since. CoinDesk's research lead expects the split between majors and altcoins to continue into next year as institutional interest concentrates on bitcoin and ether.

This week's flush: $1.19 billion in 24 hours

The anniversary arrived with a smaller rehearsal. Late on 8 October bitcoin slid from about $83,200 to roughly $80,400 after Federal Reserve minutes showed most officials expected another rate hike before year-end and a report that the Pentagon was preparing for renewed combat in Iran pushed oil higher. A warning from Ethereum researcher Justin Drake that AI could break wallet cryptography sooner than expected added to the nerves. Traders had built leverage while bitcoin ranged between $83,000 and $87,000, so the break below the range found plenty of positions to close.

Ether was hit hardest relative to size: about $1.2 million liquidated per $1 billion of market value, against about $180,000 for bitcoin. The largest single wipeout was a position of nearly $20 million in ether on Hyperliquid. Ether fell more than 3% to about $2,490 while bitcoin lost about 1%.

The move then reversed. After President Trump said the U.S. would not strike Iran before the midterm elections, bitcoin recovered to about $82,200 and roughly 78% of the $25 million liquidated over the next four hours came from short sellers. Both sides of the market were punished inside one day. The whole flush was still about one-sixteenth of the 10 October 2025 total.

By 12:53 UTC on 10 October, NexuAlpha's market feed showed bitcoin at $82,771.90, down 0.26% over 24 hours, with ether flat near $2,495. Our own liquidation monitor recorded about $95,000 of forced closes in the four hours to that time, about 86% of them longs. That monitor reads only Binance's USDT-margined force-order stream and OKX liquidation orders for five majors, so it is a lower bound, not a market total.

What a year of data says traders should watch

Analysts interviewed by CoinDesk for the anniversary make three practical points. First, avoid leverage, or keep it low enough that a fast 10–15% move does not reach your liquidation price. Second, watch open interest, funding rates and sentiment together: open interest shows how many contracts are outstanding, funding shows which side is paying to hold its bet, and when both are stretched in one direction the market is leaning too far. Third, be patient when those readings are extreme in either direction, and for long-term holdings consider self-custody instead of leaving coins on a trading venue.

The order-book data adds a fourth point: a deep bitcoin book does not protect an altcoin position. Thinner books mean the same sell order moves an altcoin price further, which is why ether and smaller tokens took a disproportionate share of this week's liquidations.

How to act on this

If you trade perpetuals, the cheapest protection is lower leverage and a liquidation price you have checked before entering, not after. Cost is the second lever: frequent traders pay fees on every entry, exit and stop. On OKX, a regular account pays 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker on USDT perpetuals; registering with NexuAlpha's partner code nexu888 returns 40% of trading fees, settled hourly, which our arithmetic puts at an effective 0.03% taker. Compare venues on the live rates page, read the OKX profile, or see OKX vs Bitget vs Binance fees after rebate. Current venue campaigns are on /activities. Partner links may earn NexuAlpha a commission paid by the exchange, at no extra cost to you.

Quick answers

How much was liquidated on 10 October 2025? More than $19 billion of leveraged positions in a single day, the largest liquidation event on record.

Is bitcoin liquidity better now than before the crash? Yes, near the price. Depth within 1% was about $11.7 million on 7 October 2026, roughly 75% above crash day. Depth 5% away is unchanged from January 2025.

Are altcoins safer now? By this measure no. Altcoin dollar depth has fallen on every date measured since January 2025.

Why were ether traders hit harder this week? Relative to market value, ether liquidations ran about six times bitcoin's rate during the 8–9 October flush, after ether fell more than 3% against bitcoin's roughly 1%.

Could another 10/10 happen? The analysts quoted say the leveraged products that drove it are still there. Nobody can time it, which is why leverage and margin are the variables you control.

Limits of this article

Depth and volume figures come from CoinDesk Research's sample of major centralized exchanges, not every venue. Liquidation totals differ between data providers; the figures above are the ones CoinDesk published. NexuAlpha's own liquidation numbers cover only Binance and OKX and are a lower bound. This article explains market structure; it is not a price forecast or trading advice.