I saw the viral graphic claiming “US$10 trillion deleted in a week” and I had to sanity-check it. The key detail: that headline is about market value (market cap) getting erased as prices retraced hard — not “cash vanishing.” (In Spanish, “10 trillion” = 10 billones).
So what likely happened?
Gold & silver were insanely crowded trades. After a massive run-up, a reversal forced leveraged/speculative positions to unwind fast — the kind of move that looks “irrational” but is basically forced selling. The “$10T” number tracks that scale when you translate big percentage drops into total market value for those markets (reports framed it as roughly $7T+ from gold and $2T+ from silver). At the same time, risk sentiment cracked across the board (tech/AI fears + macro uncertainty), and crypto moved with the broader “risk-off” wave. Reuters noted BTC sliding hard with $70k in sight during the drop. What I’m watching next (because this is where the next leg usually comes from): Volatility after forced unwinds (often we get sharp bounces + nasty follow-through). BTC holding key levels (if it can’t reclaim them, alts usually don’t get a real “altseason” window). Narratives flipping fast: when “safe havens” dump and crypto dumps, it’s telling you liquidity/risk appetite is the real driver.