March 12, 2020. Bitcoin lost half its value in a single day. The biggest exchange just went dark.
On March 11 the WHO called COVID a pandemic. The next day every market on earth sold at once. Bitcoin went from about $7,900 to about $3,850 in 36 hours. On Bitstamp it fell 39% in one day, the worst single day since 2013.
It happened in two legs. The first drop, about 25%, was fast but orderly. Then the market structure broke. BitMEX, the biggest BTC futures venue back then, liquidated $863 million of longs in a day. At one point there were only about $20 million of bids left on the whole order book, against more than $200 million of longs still waiting to be liquidated. Then it went offline. The official line was a DDoS attack.
DeFi nearly died the same day. Ethereum gas spiked so high the liquidation bots could not get transactions through, and on MakerDAO some collateral auctions closed with $0 bids. Borrowers lost everything for free. About $8.3 million in undercollateralized DAI came out of it.
The Dow went from about 29,500 in mid-February to about 20,000 by mid-March. On March 15 the Fed cut rates to near zero. Times Square emptied out.
And then? By the end of April Bitcoin was back above its pre-crash price. It halved on May 11 as planned. It ended 2020 near $29,000, more than 7x the March low.
Tonight BTC is sitting around $75,750, stuck inside a $630 box all night. Back in March 2020 it lost half its value in a day.
So which market is crazier, the one that falls 50% in a day, or the one that cannot move at all?
$BTC $ETH $BNB
On March 11 the WHO called COVID a pandemic. The next day every market on earth sold at once. Bitcoin went from about $7,900 to about $3,850 in 36 hours. On Bitstamp it fell 39% in one day, the worst single day since 2013.
It happened in two legs. The first drop, about 25%, was fast but orderly. Then the market structure broke. BitMEX, the biggest BTC futures venue back then, liquidated $863 million of longs in a day. At one point there were only about $20 million of bids left on the whole order book, against more than $200 million of longs still waiting to be liquidated. Then it went offline. The official line was a DDoS attack.
DeFi nearly died the same day. Ethereum gas spiked so high the liquidation bots could not get transactions through, and on MakerDAO some collateral auctions closed with $0 bids. Borrowers lost everything for free. About $8.3 million in undercollateralized DAI came out of it.
The Dow went from about 29,500 in mid-February to about 20,000 by mid-March. On March 15 the Fed cut rates to near zero. Times Square emptied out.
And then? By the end of April Bitcoin was back above its pre-crash price. It halved on May 11 as planned. It ended 2020 near $29,000, more than 7x the March low.
Tonight BTC is sitting around $75,750, stuck inside a $630 box all night. Back in March 2020 it lost half its value in a day.
So which market is crazier, the one that falls 50% in a day, or the one that cannot move at all?
$BTC $ETH $BNB
