By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
A rapid and violent sell-off wiped more than $500 billion from crypto markets Friday, triggering forced liquidations, collapsing wrapped tokens, leading to nearly $20 billion in liquidations, and straining exchange infrastructure.
The flash crash, described by Bitwise portfolio manager Jonathan Man as possibly the worst liquidation event in crypto history, erased $65 billion in open interest and reset positioning to levels last seen in July.
The violent crash saw Bitcoin drop 13% in a single hour before rebounding, while some tokens saw flash crashes of more than 40%. Since then, the market has been recovering, with the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index now being up 7.7% in the last 24 hours, while still being down some 7.4% from the crash.
On Binance, infrastructure failures caused wrapped assets like wBETH and BNSOL to diverge massively from their underlying prices. wBETH, which is meant to track ether, fell as low as $430 while ETH traded above $3,800.Binance pledged to compensate affected users and has switched to a more stable conversion-based pricing model for wrapped assets.
“Market structure issues including large derivative exchanges liquidating users (irrespective of their margin), uptime issues, and some stablecoin and liquid staking assets experiencing meaningful price dislocations from their underlying collateral backing assets have all contributed to where we are today,” Stuart Connolly, CIO at Deus X Capital, said in an emailed statement.
“The “Perp Dex” narrative that has been so popular has taken a few meaningful steps back,” he added. “The market needed a reset, and if President Trump’s position softens, as it looks like it might, we will see crypto assets higher during Q4 as a result.”
The ongoing U.S. government shutdown means markets are still operating in a data vacuum. Amid the risk-off sentiment, gold has kept on rallying, helping tokens backed by the precious metal like PAXG and XAUT near $4,090.
Today, U.S. markets will remain closed, and there are few macro references to lean on. Traders will instead watch how the market reacts as liquidity gets a boost after the weekend.
None of the typically used crypto market cycle top indicators have so far been triggered. Stay alert!
What to Watch
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
- Crypto
- Oct. 13: CME Group aiming to launch options on SOL and XRP, subject to regulatory approval.
- Macro
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
- Governance votes & calls
- Superfluid DAO is voting on a proposal to upgrade contracts for wrapper superTokens like ETHx and USDCx so the DAO can invest their underlying assets and generate yield income for its treasury. Voting ends Oct. 13.
- ENS DAO is voting on a proposal to establish reverse records for its core contracts to improve identification, usability, and demonstrate best practices by fully using the ENS protocol. Voting ends Oct. 13.
- Unlocks
- Token Launches
- Oct. 14: SANDchain, a zk-powered Ethereum layer-2, launches.
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
- The crypto market kicked off Monday with a rebound in the wake of a sharp weekend leverage flush. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the total crypto market cap climbed roughly 5.7% in the past 24 hours, with volume jumping about 26.8%, suggesting those liquidated at the weekend are repurchasing their positions.
- A total of $19 billion worth of derivatives positions were wiped out over the weekend with the vast majority being attributed to those holding long positions, in the past 24 hours, however, $626 billion was liquidated with $420 billion of that being on the short side, demonstrating a reversal in sentiment, according to CoinGlass.
- The recovery has been tentative so far; the dominance of Bitcoin remains elevated at about 58.45%, down modestly from recent highs, which implies altcoins may still lag as capital piles back into safer large-cap names.
- The big winner of Monday’s recovery was , which rose by more than 12
Derivatives Positioning
- The BTC futures market has stabilized after a volatile period. Open interest, which had dropped from $33 billion to $23 billion over the weekend, has now settled at around $26 billion. Similarly, the 3-month annualized basis has rebounded to the 6-7% range, after dipping to 4-5% over the weekend, indicating that the bullish sentiment has largely returned. However, funding rates remain a key area of divergence; while Bybit and Hyperliquid have settled around 10%, Binance’s rate is negative.
- The BTC options market is showing a renewed bullish lean. The 24-hour Put/Call Volume has shifted to be more in favor of calls, now at over 56%. Additionally, the 1-week 25 Delta Skew has risen to 2.5% after a period of flatness.
- These metrics indicate a market with increasing demand for bullish exposure and upside protection, reflecting a shift away from the recent “cautious neutrality.”
- Coinglass data shows $620 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 34-66 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($218 million), BTC ($124 million) and SOL ($43 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $116,620 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price rise.
Market Movements
- BTC is up 0.48% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $115,132.15 (24hrs: 3.05%)
- ETH is up 0.97% at $4,166.14 (24hrs: 8.96%)
- CoinDesk 20 is up 0.42% at 3,852.77 (24hrs: +6.92%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 98 bps at 2.92%
- BTC funding rate is at -0.0012% (-1.367% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is up 0.13% at 99.11
- Gold futures are up 2.37% at $4,095.10
- Silver futures are up 5.08% at $49.65
- Nikkei 225 closed down 1.01% at 48,088.80
- Hang Seng closed down 1.52% at 25,889.48
- FTSE is unchanged at 9,428.00
- Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.68% at 5,568.86
- DJIA closed on Friday down 1.90% at 45,479.60
- S&P 500 closed down 2.71% at 6,552.51
- Nasdaq Composite closed down 3.56% at 22,204.43
- S&P/TSX Composite closed down 1.38% at 29,850.89
- S&P 40 Latin America closed down 2.54% at 2,785.96
- U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 8.9 bps at 4.059%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 1.35% at 6,684.00
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.88% at 24,856.25
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are up 0.97% at 46,150.00
Bitcoin Stats
- BTC Dominance: 59.22% (-0.44%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03617 (0.11%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,021 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $48.33
- Total Fees: 2.43 BTC / $274,808
- CME Futures Open Interest: 145,105 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 28.6 oz
- BTC vs gold market cap: 8.06%
Technical Analysis
- Following the largest liquidation event in the industry’s history, major cryptocurrency prices have begun to stabilize, gradually reverting to levels seen the previous week. ETH briefly dipped to $3,400 before rebounding to reclaim the weekly range lows around $4,070.
- Notably, the $3,400 zone aligns with the EMA200 on the daily timeframe, providing a strong technical support. ETH is currently trading near $4,150, just below the daily EMA50.
- Bulls will want to see a weekly close above the $4,070, effectively establishing a swing low and signalling renewed strength in the trend.
Crypto Equities
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Friday at $357.01 (-7.75%)
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $132.94 (-11.66%)
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $39.38 (-6.73%)
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $60.41 (-9.44%)
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $18.65 (-7.67%)
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $21.01 (-5.7%)
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $18.52 (+2.66%)
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $19.28 (-4.03%)
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $55.34 (-3.87%)
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $28.5 (-3.94%)
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $304.79 (-4.84%)
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $26.8 (-5.37%)
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $15.31 (-9.65%)
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $6.35 (-7.3%)
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $2.47 (-2.76%)
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flow: -$4.5 million
- Cumulative net flows: $62.73 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1.36 million
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flow: -$174.9 million
- Cumulative net flows: $14.92 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 6.87 million
Source: Farside Investors
