rewrite this title Weekend ‘Crypto Black Friday’ liquidation cascade: What actually happened?

Crypto markets absorbed approximately $19 billion to $20 billion in forced liquidations within 24 hours on Oct. 10, marking the largest single-day deleveraging event on record.

Hyperliquid processed more than $10 billion, while Binance accounted for roughly $2.4 billion. Altcoins bore the brunt of selling pressure while Bitcoin’s drawdown remained comparatively contained.

Bitwise portfolio manager Jonathan Man calculated that about $65 billion of futures open interest (OI) disappeared across venues during the cascade, resetting positioning to levels last observed in July.

The washout concentrated offshore, as Hyperliquid and Bybit absorbed the heaviest liquidation volume, while Binance’s share was smaller than typical for an event of this scale.

CME maintained a larger proportion of Bitcoin futures OI through the selloff, and Coinglass data now show CME, Binance, Bybit, and OKX as the top Bitcoin futures venues by notional.

Despite the remarkably negative episode, Bitcoin is only 8% down from its all-time high of $126,000, trading at $115,058.29 as of press time.

Major cap altcoins also registered significant recoveries. Ethereum, XRP, and Dogecoin are all up by 10% since Oct. 10. BNB is up by 15.6% in the same period, after registering a new all-time high of $1,375.11 on Oct. 13.

Solana is up by 8.3% since the liquidation event, and Cardano recovered 13% in the same period.

Funding and basis compression

Perpetual swap funding rates flipped negative or pinned near zero across major pairs into and through Oct. 10 and 11.

Additionally, Glassnode flagged aggregate funding at the lowest reading since the 2022 bear market, confirming a clean deleveraging. Exchange trackers around the trough recorded neutral-to-negative eight-hour prints on Binance, OKX, and Bybit.

Altcoin perpetuals showed an even sharper flip. Solana’s eight-hour funding rate fluctuated around -0.23% at multiple intervals on Oct. 11, a rare, broad “pay shorts” regime that signals a shift from crowded longs to defensive positioning.

That flip coincided with a collapse in altcoin OI and a sharp basis compression across dated futures, a classic footprint of a leverage purge centered outside Bitcoin.

By late weekend, several trackers showed monthly contracts back near 8% annualized for Bitcoin contracts on Deribit, a swing from mildly overheated to neutral, then a tentative re-steepening that accompanies reduced fragility.

ETF flows dynamics into the crash

Farside Investors’ data on US-traded spot Bitcoin ETF inflows show heavy net inflows earlier in the week, tapering into the crash, and then flipping slightly negative on Oct. 10.

BlackRock’s IBIT brought in $899.4 million on Oct. 7, and $426.2 million on Oct. 8. By Oct. 9, inflows had slowed to $255.5 million from IBIT, while Fidelity’s FBTC posted a $13.2 million outflow and Grayscale’s GBTC recorded $45.5 million of redemptions, producing a combined net inflow of nearly $198 million.

On the day of the crash, IBIT inflows dropped to $74.2 million, while other issuers’ inflows flipped negative.

As a result, the day’s net flow turned negative by $4.5 million, ending a streak of nine consecutive days of positive net inflows. Additionally, although the outflows were small, they marked a departure from the prior three sessions of dip-buying.

The sequence of flows is important. ETF inflows between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8 preceded lighter net buying and Oct. 10’s small net outflow. Meanwhile, funding and basis compressed sharply, confirming deleveraging on perpetuals and dated futures.

The combination of spot ETF demand fading right as derivatives leverage cleared helped explain the violent wick and quick stabilization.

Liquidity gaps and on-chain resilience

Stress concentrated where order books were thinnest. Several altcoins briefly printed near zero on some exchanges, driven by leverage unwind pullbacks that left momentary air pockets in specific pairs.

Bitcoin stabilized more quickly because it benefits from a deeper order book and a developing ETF buyer base.

Altcoins, lacking ETF-style demand sinks, absorbed the full brunt of derivative deleveraging through cross-margin collateral sales, negative funding across altcoin perpetuals, and patchy liquidity that amplified losses in the long tail.

The deleveraging flushed $65 billion of speculative positioning from the system in a single session. Until leverage rebuilds and market-makers widen back in, altcoins will likely remain more volatile than Bitcoin.

Despite the bloodshed, the event signals a heavy reset. Fewer forced sellers after the flush, modest basis rebuilding, and funding grinding back toward a flat level point to a market that has shed its fragility relative to a week ago.

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