On October 10–11, 2025, more than $19 billion of leveraged crypto positions were force-closed in about 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data cited by CoinDesk and CoinGecko. It is the largest liquidation event on record. More than 1.6 million traders were liquidated. The trigger was President Trump's Truth Social post announcing an extra 100% tariff on Chinese imports from November 1, 2025. The damage came from what that shock hit: perpetual futures open interest near a record $217 billion, crowded long positions, order books that emptied within minutes, and a yield-bearing synthetic dollar used as margin that lost its peg on one large venue. A year later, in October 2026, Bitcoin trades around 35% below its October 2025 record, and funding rates are a fraction of their pre-crash levels.
October 2026: where leverage stands a year later
The anniversary came with another flush of leveraged longs, though a much smaller one.
- October 6, 2026: Bitcoin briefly fell below $84,000, with a low near $83,800. CoinGlass recorded $555.6 million of liquidations over 24 hours, $487.2 million of them longs (The Block).
- Around October 9–10, 2026: Bitcoin fell to $80,393 and more than $1 billion was liquidated in 24 hours, about $930 million of it long bets. BeInCrypto reported this on October 10, 2026, putting the price about 35% below the October 2025 record near $126,000.
- Leverage and funding: CryptoQuant's estimated leverage ratio rose from about 0.234 on October 3, 2026 to about 0.256 on October 8, then eased to about 0.250. CoinGlass open interest fell from about $154 billion to about $142 billion. Annualised funding on one large options and futures venue was about 7.1%, against 26.9% before the 2025 crash (all as reported by BeInCrypto).
These numbers show a market that is still leveraged but much less crowded on funding than in early October 2025. They do not tell you whether a cascade of the same size is coming.
What happened on October 10, 2025
The setup
- Bitcoin set a record near $126,000 in early October 2025. On October 10 itself it reached an intraday high of $122,574 (CoinGecko).
- Perpetual futures open interest stood at about $217 billion on October 10 (CoinDesk, citing CoinGlass).
- Annualised funding rates had reached about 30% by October 6, according to CoinGecko. That means holders of long positions were paying heavily to keep them open.
The timeline (UTC, October 10, 2025)
The minute-by-minute figures below come from an Amberdata analysis. It is now hosted by Kaiko, which acquired Amberdata's research and notes the piece may not reflect Kaiko's own position. The analysis does not list every venue in its dataset, so its totals are lower than CoinGlass's market-wide $19 billion.
| Time (UTC) | Event |
|---|---|
| 14:27 | Large short positions opened, per the analysis |
| 14:57 | Tariff announcement in the analysis's timeline |
| 13:00–20:50 | Liquidations run at about $0.12B per hour |
| 20:50–21:30 | The cascade: $6.93B liquidated in 40 minutes, about 70% of the $9.89B the dataset tracked |
| 21:15 | Peak minute: $3.21B liquidated in 60 seconds |
| 21:31 | Bitcoin perpetual bid-ask spread peaks at 26.43 bps, up from 0.02 bps |
| 21:36–22:15 | USDe trades as low as $0.65 on one large exchange (CoinGecko) |
Other details from the same dataset:
- Visible order book depth fell from $103.64 million to $0.17 million, a drop of more than 98%.
- Open interest fell 25% from peak to trough. Long liquidations made up 83.9% of the total.
- Liquidations during the cascade ran at about $10.39 billion an hour.
CoinGecko puts the Bitcoin low at $104,782 on October 11, 14.5% below the day's high. CoinDesk Reference Rates show a low of $106,560. The two differ because they draw on different price sources.
How bad it was across the market
CoinDesk's research desk reported on October 17, 2025 that perpetual futures open interest fell 43% in a day, from $217 billion to $123 billion. Tokens in CoinDesk Data's tracked universe dropped about 47% on average at the worst point. The top 100 tokens averaged a 58% intraday drawdown.
How October 10, 2025 unfolded, and where leverage stood a year later
Step through the dated moments from the crowded setup to the cascade, the aftermath and the October 2026 anniversary flush.
- Oct 6, 2025Funding near 30% annualisedconfirmed
Annualised funding rates had reached about 30%, meaning holders of long positions were paying heavily to keep them open (CoinGecko).
- Oct 10, 2025Open interest near a record $217 billionconfirmed
Perpetual futures open interest stood at about $217 billion, and Bitcoin reached an intraday high of $122,574 after a record near $126,000 earlier in the month (CoinDesk citing CoinGlass; CoinGecko).
- Oct 10, 2025, 14:57 UTCTariff announcementconfirmed
The analysis's timeline places the announcement of an extra 100% tariff on Chinese imports from November 1, 2025 at 14:57 UTC. Large short positions had been opened at 14:27 UTC, per the same analysis (Amberdata, hosted by Kaiko).
- Oct 10, 2025, 20:50–21:30 UTCThe cascadeconfirmed
$6.93B was liquidated in 40 minutes, about 70% of the $9.89B the dataset tracked. Before that, liquidations had run at about $0.12B per hour (Amberdata).
- Oct 10, 2025, 21:15 UTCPeak minuteconfirmed
$3.21B was liquidated in 60 seconds. Visible order book depth fell from $103.64 million to $0.17 million over the event (Amberdata).
- Oct 10, 2025, 21:31 UTCSpreads blow outconfirmed
The Bitcoin perpetual bid-ask spread peaked at 26.43 bps, up from 0.02 bps (Amberdata).
- Oct 10, 2025, 21:36–22:15 UTCUSDe depegs on one venueconfirmed
USDe traded as low as $0.65 on one large centralised exchange; where that venue valued USDe margin at its local price, collateral shrank and set off further liquidations (CoinGecko).
- Oct 11, 2025Bitcoin low and a $19 billion totalconfirmed
CoinGecko puts the Bitcoin low at $104,782, 14.5% below the day's high; CoinDesk Reference Rates show $106,560. More than $19 billion of positions were force-closed in about 24 hours and more than 1.6 million traders were liquidated (CoinGlass via CoinDesk and CoinGecko).
- Oct 17, 2025Damage across the market measuredconfirmed
CoinDesk's research desk reported perpetual open interest fell 43% in a day, from $217 billion to $123 billion, and the top 100 tokens averaged a 58% intraday drawdown.
- Oct 6, 2026Anniversary flush beginsconfirmed
Bitcoin briefly fell below $84,000, with a low near $83,800; CoinGlass recorded $555.6 million of liquidations over 24 hours, $487.2 million of them longs (The Block).
- Oct 9–10, 2026Leverage a year onconfirmed
Bitcoin fell to $80,393 and more than $1 billion was liquidated in 24 hours, about $930 million of it longs. Annualised funding on one large venue was about 7.1%, against 26.9% before the 2025 crash (BeInCrypto).
This timeline lists reported events only: figures differ by data provider and venue coverage, minute-level data rests on one dataset, and it cannot show whether a cascade of the same size will happen again.
Why the drop turned into a cascade
Thin books and forced selling
A liquidation is a market order the trader did not choose to place. When thousands arrive within one minute and market makers have pulled their bids, each forced sale moves the price further and triggers the next margin call. The Amberdata figures above (depth down 98%, spreads widening more than a thousandfold) show that loop in the data.
A synthetic dollar used as margin
USDe, issued by Ethena Labs, is a synthetic dollar. It does not hold cash reserves. Its peg relies on a hedged position of crypto collateral against short perpetual futures. On October 10 it traded at $0.65 on one large centralised exchange between 21:36 and 22:15 UTC. Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi said it did not diverge on other venues (quoted by CoinGecko). Where that exchange valued USDe margin at its local market price, the drop cut account collateral and set off further liquidations. CoinDesk also names oracle design and shared collateral as factors that made losses worse. According to The Defiant, USDe's market cap fell more than $5 billion in the three and a half weeks after the crash.
Auto-deleveraging (ADL)
ADL is used when a liquidated account's losses exceed what the venue's insurance fund can cover. The venue then closes profitable positions on the other side to cover the gap. A trader whose short was making money, or a market maker holding a hedge, can be closed out without placing an order.
On October 10, 2025, ADL was not a side detail:
- Tarun Chitra's paper "Autodeleveraging: Impossibilities and Optimization" (arXiv:2512.01112, first posted November 30, 2025) studies one large on-chain perpetuals venue. It reports ADL was used repeatedly to close $2.1 billion of positions in 12 minutes. It estimates that profitable traders lost $45.0 million to $51.7 million in excess profit. The paper argues that no ADL policy can deliver exchange solvency, revenue and fairness to traders all at once.
- Campbell, Hey, Moallemi and Nutz, "Risk-Based Auto-Deleveraging" (arXiv:2603.15963, March 2026, revised July 2026), use the same October 10 event as a case study. They propose deleveraging the most highly levered accounts first and, for cross-margined portfolios, adjusting for hedges. They report that their allocations would have produced lower expected shortfall than the venue's actual allocation.
The dispute over responsibility
No regulator has published findings on October 10, 2025, and no single explanation is settled. Three accounts compete:
- Macro shock plus crowded leverage. Seraphim Czecker, former growth head at Ethena Labs, blamed excessively leveraged altcoin positions (quoted by CoinGecko).
- One venue's collateral design. The chief executive of a rival exchange said on January 31, 2026 that "10/10 was caused by irresponsible marketing campaigns by certain companies", referring to a USDe yield promotion and its treatment as margin.
- The venue's own position. The exchange where USDe depegged disputed that its incidents caused the crash, arguing the timing did not match. CoinGecko reports it compensated affected users with between $283 million and $328 million.
Former CFTC official Salman Banaei wrote: "Whether you love or hate crypto, there should be an investigation by regulators into Oct 10, 2025" (quoted by CoinGecko).
What the event shows about how leveraged markets fail
These are descriptions of how the system behaved, not recommendations.
- Crowded funding warned early. Funding near 30% annualised on October 6, 2025 meant longs were paying a large premium to stay in. The roughly 7% reading in October 2026 is far lower. Our guide to funding rates explains how the rate is set.
- Stop orders are not guaranteed prices. With depth down 98% and spreads at 26 bps, stop orders filled far from where they were set, or behind the liquidation flow.
- Cross-margin spreads one asset's failure. When one collateral asset is marked down, every position sharing that margin pool loses buffer at the same moment.
- A hedge can be taken apart. ADL can close the profitable leg of a hedged position, leaving the losing leg open.
- Venue rules matter as much as price. How a venue prices collateral (its own order book or several external sources), how deep its insurance fund is, and how its ADL queue works all decided outcomes on October 10. Most venues publish these rules in their documentation.
For the wider picture of the 2026 market, see why crypto is falling in 2026.
Limitations: figures differ by data provider and venue coverage; public liquidation data likely understates true totals; no regulatory findings exist yet.
