$19B Wiped Out in Crypto's Biggest Liquidation

Summary

🧨 A Historic Flush: ~$19B in Crypto LiquidationsFriday wasn’t just a bad day for crypto.It was the worst day in crypto’s existence.And all due to a miscommunication at the highest level…📌 What HappenedThe crypto market saw the largest liquidation wave on record on Friday with ~$19B liquidated in 24 hours, as forced unwinds spanned exchanges and Perps protocols.After President Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese tech and tighter export controls, BTC slid from $118,000 to $101,000 in the span of a few hours.Alts got absolutely obliterated, with some like SUI falling as much as 80%. ~8–13% intraday and dragged majors with it.As prices knifed lower, ~$19.1B of positions were liquidated, ~$16.7B of them longs, per CoinDesk.Hyperliquid was >$1.2B in trader equity vaporized and left 6,300 wallets in the red.Open interest was wiped by $65B.Effectively, a full market reset, sending positioning back to midsummer levels.🗣️ What They’re Saying“Yesterday was the worst liquidation event in crypto history with over $20B+ in liquidations in CeFi and several hundred million in DeFi reported. Market participants are pointing to escalating trade tensions between China and US but it’s almost irrelevant what news caused this.In one hour, BTC fell -13% from peak to trough. Altcoins losses were even more severe – ATOM fell -100% in the span of an hour to virtually zero. Prices have rebounded from these extreme lows but no doubt there will be bodies left in the wake of this wreckage.” - Jonathan Man, PM at Bitwise“Rumor mill currently saying two large trading firms were liquidated to zero. Hearing different takes but the idea is they owned a book of top 100 mcap tokens which were collateralized against each other in size ($1B+) & became forced market sellers of their entire book” - Ayyyyeandy on X🧠 Why It MattersAs the dust settles, we still don’t know exactly what happened.It seems it was an algorithmically driven selloff which liquidated some major players who were cross-collaterali...