On that night a year ago, the positions of 1.6 million people vanished within 24 hours. Today, BTC is still struggling around $83,000. But what’s truly terrifying isn’t the price—it’s the things that can never come back.
1/ Let’s go back to that night.
On October 6, 2025, BTC had just hit a new all-time high of $126,080. Four days later, Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese goods.
Within 24 hours, $19.16 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated, affecting more than 1.6 million traders. Hyperliquid alone liquidated $10.3 billion.
That night, many people thought it was just “another crash.” Looking back, it was the end of an era.
Ironically, that 100% tariff never actually took effect. The U.S. and Chinese leaders reached an understanding at their meeting in Busan in late October last year, and in February this year the Supreme Court ruled that the president lacked the authority to impose tariffs under IEEPA.
The trigger was fake. But what got blown up was real money.
2/ Prices: They look “mild,” but they really sting.
BTC fell from $126,080 to $58,500 in June, a maximum drawdown of 54%. It’s now around $83,000, still 34% below its peak.
For historical context: in past bear markets, BTC typically fell more than 75% from peak to trough. This time it “only” fell 54%—which looks mild.
But mild doesn’t mean safe. The total crypto market cap fell from $4.29 trillion to $2.88 trillion. Altcoins fared even worse—their total market cap fell from $1.86 trillion to $1.23 trillion, a decline of about 40% after excluding stablecoins.
BTC fell by only a third, while your altcoins fell by 40%. For most people, the word “mild” is a joke.
3/ Institutions: This is the most fundamental change.
Cumulative net inflows into BTC ETFs fell from $62.77 billion to $57.08 billion, a net outflow of $5.7 billion over the year. Assets under management fell from $158.97 billion to $105.22 billion, a decline of about one-third.
November and December 2025 saw combined net outflows of $4.57 billion—the largest two-month outflow since ETFs launched. The first half of 2026 saw $5.4 billion in net outflows, marking the first half-year period of net outflows.
ETH ETFs fared even worse: assets under management fell from $32 billion to $15.7 billion, nearly halving.
ETF inflows are ebbing—not because institutions have turned against crypto, but because a risk-free rate of 5% is more appealing than crypto. The money hasn’t disappeared; it’s just found somewhere more comfortable to go.
4/ Leverage: It hasn’t disappeared; it’s just moved.
Total open interest in perpetual futures across the market fell from a peak of $210 billion on October 7, 2025, to $99.1 billion in April 2026—nearly halved.
But the structure has changed completely—
The share of open interest held by perpetual futures DEXs rose from under 4% to 13.5%. Hyperliquid alone accounts for 56.8% of total DEX open interest.
The assets being traded are no longer just crypto. Perpetual futures on gold and semiconductor ETFs have entered the top 10 by trading volume. RWA perpetual futures recorded around $147.5 billion in monthly trading volume in July, nearly one-fifth of total on-chain perpetual futures volume.
Leverage hasn’t died. It has simply moved from CEXs on-chain, and from crypto into traditional assets.
5/ A new species: old players are leaving, new players are rising.
BitMEX, the inventor of perpetual futures, operated for 11 years and at its peak held 57% of the global crypto derivatives market. It officially shut down on September 23. The BME X token plunged more than 94% in a single day, down nearly 99.8% from its all-time high.
AscendEX and BitMart shut down one after the other. In the first seven months of this year, more than 60 crypto companies and projects closed or went bankrupt.
But on the other side:
Combined monthly trading volume on prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket surged from $8.5 billion to $72.3 billion, nearly 10x in a year. Trading volume in the first half of this year reached $187 billion, 2.7x last year’s total.
Binance’s bStocks tokenized stocks surpassed $800 million in size less than four months after launch. The tokenized stock category as a whole surpassed $3 billion in market cap. Gen Z accounted for 44% of trading volume, and 41.5% of users were introduced to traditional financial investing through bStocks.
The on-chain U.S. Treasury market surpassed $16.2 billion, up 77% since the start of the year.
A coffin on one side, a cradle on the other.
6/ What did we lose this year?
$5.7 billion in institutional capital.
Half the market’s leverage.
Old players like BitMEX.
40% of altcoin market cap.
But more importantly—
The old paradigm of the “retail-leveraged bull market.”
The old playbook of “going all-in on altcoins with 100x leverage and waiting for institutions to take the other side” is dead this cycle. What remains and is on the rise are ETFs, on-chain derivatives, prediction markets, and tokenized assets—all institutional-grade tools.
7/ The end
1011 isn’t the end.
It marks the starting point of crypto’s shift from a “retail-leveraged bull market” to a new paradigm of “institutions + on-chain + multiple asset classes.”
The old market makers are leaving, and new ones are moving in. This isn’t a bear market—it’s a changing of the guard.
If you’re still using the last cycle’s playbook in this one, you really can’t blame anyone else for your losses.