It’s been exactly one year since last October’s liquidation storm, which wiped out nearly $20 billion. Many people look at the charts and think the market has long since recovered, but a closer look at order book data from major exchanges reveals a much more interesting picture. The bid-ask spreads have indeed narrowed, making things look calm on the surface, but the capital posted at the top of the books has not returned. The best-quote depth for major coins is generally only 60–70% of what it was before the crash, and the imbalance between the two sides is severe: sell-side orders have long since rebounded, while bids remain starved of liquidity. Take Ethereum, for example: the value of buy orders within 1% of the mid-price is only a little over 70% of what it was a year ago. The market now has a classic case of superficial bulk: quotes look normal, but even a slight wave of large sell orders would still meet pitifully weak buying support.