What started as a trade headline ended as one of the bloodiest nights in crypto history. Within hours, over 1.6 million traders were wiped out, the USDe stablecoin lost its peg, and hundreds of billions of dollars vanished from the market.
🔥 A Single Tariff Spark That Lit a Global Fire
On October 10, Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on Chinese software and tech products. Risk assets plunged instantly — but it was crypto that took the hardest hit. Bitcoin collapsed from $126K to five digits, Ethereum followed, and leveraged traders faced a chain reaction. What began as a macro headline became a liquidation storm as sentiment and liquidity collapsed together.
⚙️ When Leverage Turns Self-Destructive
According to Coinglass, more than 1.6 million traders were liquidated within 24 hours, totaling $19 billion — a new all-time record. Most of the wipeouts came in minutes. As BTC broke key support levels, cascading sell orders triggered auto-liquidations across major exchanges. ETH, SOL, and PEPE saw the highest hit rates, with liquidation panels flashing red across every platform.
💀 USDe’s Wake-Up Call: When “Stable” Stops Being Stable
Even stablecoins trembled. Ethena’s USDe crashed to $0.66 at the height of panic. The team claimed redemptions and reserves were intact, but secondary-market fear outpaced the math. The coin eventually clawed back to $0.9, yet the episode left a scar: a real-time stress test of decentralized “stability.”
🐋 Whales vs. Retail: A Battlefield of Blood and Profit
While retail traders were wiped out, whales and market makers executed “tactical retreats.” On-chain data showed large wallets shorting or hedging hours before the drop, then closing in profit as chaos unfolded. It wasn’t conspiracy — just structural advantage. In the liquidity vacuum, whales wrote the rules; retail paid the price.
📉 From Euphoria to Ashes — $600 B Gone Overnight
Days before the crash, total crypto market cap hovered near $4.35 trillion — its highest this year. By the bottom, it had fallen to $3.8 trillion, erasing roughly $550–600 billion. Meme tokens plunged 90% in a day. The 10·11 night wasn’t an ending but a brutal reset: a reminder that bull markets aren’t about endless green candles, but about who survives the red ones.
💬A night of blood, fear, and recalibration. Some walked away empty-handed; others walked away richer. After the “10·11 Black Swan,” one question remains — are you still sitting at the table?
