- Some altcoins on Binance dropped up to 90% in the latest crypto market, which led to a massive $19 billion in liquidations.
- Major centralized exchanges, including Binance, Coinbase, Robinhood, and Kraken, faced heavy technical issues during the crash, with frozen order books and lagging apps.
Following US President Donald Trump’s 100% tariff imposition on China on Friday, October 10, the crypto market crashed, triggering one of the biggest liquidations in history, to the tune of $19 billion. While Bitcoin price is down 8.5% today, altcoins faced an even bigger crash, with some dropping even 90% on Binance.
Altcoins Lead the Crypto Market Crash
Friday’s crypto market crash triggered a cascade of liquidations across major crypto exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, etc. Several altcoins on Binance experienced dramatic declines, with some tokens, including IOTX, briefly dropping to $0. Similarly, another altcoin Atom, was almost dead in the spot trading market.
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes attributed the sharp sell-offs to automated liquidations of collateral linked to cross-margin positions on major centralized exchanges (CEXs). Hayes noted that while the crashes were severe, many high-quality altcoins are unlikely to return to these lows anytime soon. In his message on the X platform, Hayes wrote:
“Word on the street is that big CEX’s auto liquidation of collateral tied to cross margined positions is why lots of alts got smoked on the move down. Congrats to all you stink bidders. We won’t be seeing those levels any time soon on many high quality alts”.
This massive liquidation flush out is unprecedented and like never been seen before in history. The crypto market saw its most severe single-day liquidation ever, surpassing previous major crises, including the FTX collapse, the COVID-19 market crash, and the 2018 crypto downturn. Investors faced unprecedented losses as leveraged positions were wiped out across the market, marking a historic event in crypto trading.
Crypto Exchanges Face Major Congestion
Following yesterday’s crypto market, some of the top centralized exchanges (CEX) like Binance, Coinbase, etc. suffered heavy congestion for a short time. This shows that they failed the litmus test once again. Major centralized exchanges, including Binance, Coinbase, Robinhood, and Kraken, faced significant technical issues as the crypto market experienced its largest-ever liquidation.
Order books froze, apps lagged, and traders were temporarily locked out during the crash. The event served not only as a liquidation but also as a real-world stress test for the infrastructure of top crypto exchanges. In a message on X platform, Binance noted:
“Due to heavy market activity, our systems are under high load. Some users may experience intermittent delays or display issues. We’re actively monitoring the situation and working to resolve it. Funds are SAFU. Thank you for your patience!”
However, hours later, Binance restored operations once again. On the other hand, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Hyperliquid staged strong gains, Hyperliquid blockchain maintained full uptime and experienced no latency issues, even amid record traffic and trading volumes. Its HyperBFT consensus and execution mechanisms efficiently managed the surge in throughput.

