2025 Crypto Liquidation Tsunami: Here’s How Much Got Wiped Out In The Bitcoin Market
The year 2025 didn't just test crypto portfolios—it obliterated them. A cascade of liquidations swept through digital asset markets, turning paper gains into vaporized capital and leaving traders staring at empty wallets.
The Great Unwind
Forced selling hit like a wrecking ball. As prices swung with violent volatility, over-leveraged positions snapped. Margin calls triggered automated sell-offs, which then fueled more price drops—a classic death spiral that flushed billions from the system almost overnight.
Where The Pain Hit Hardest
While Bitcoin and Ethereum saw massive amounts cleared, the altcoin sector was a bloodbath. High-flying tokens built more on hype than utility got their wings clipped hardest. The numbers—staggering in their scale—painted a clear picture: speculation got a very expensive reality check.
The Aftermath & The Silver Lining
Markets don't purge excess without causing pain, but they do reset. This liquidation event, while brutal, washed out weak hands and excessive leverage. It cleared the decks for a healthier foundation—the kind that sustainable rallies are built on. Consider it the market's version of tough love, delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
One cynical take? Traditional finance pundits, who've been waiting for a 'told-you-so' moment for years, finally got their material. Never mind that their own sector has bailouts for breakfast.
The final tally for 2025 stands as a stark monument to risk. A number so large it feels abstract—until it's your portfolio on the line. The lesson, as always in crypto, is written in red.
Here’s How Much Was Liquidated From The Bitcoin and Crypto Market In 2025
A CoinGlass report revealed that the total nominal value of forced liquidations across both long and short positions was approximately $150 billion. This corresponds to a daily average of roughly between $400 and $500 million in routine leverage washing. CoinGlass noted that the vast majority of trading days were limited to liquidations, which were in the range of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. As such, these movements had a limited impact on medium to long-term Bitcoin prices and crypto market structure.
However, CoinGlass stated that the systemic stress was fully concentrated within a few extreme event windows, with the deleveraging event of October 10 being the most obvious for the bitcoin and crypto market. On that day, the market-wide liquidation volume reached an extreme peak, with short and long liquidations surpassing $19 billion.
This marked the largest liquidation event in the Bitcoin and crypto market’s history and surpassed the single-day highs of all previous liquidation rounds. CoinGlass suggested that the magnitude of the October 10 liquidation may be much higher than $19 billion, given the disclosure timing of certain platforms and feedback from market makers. Based on this, the derivatives analysis platform estimates that the actual nominal liquidation scale likely reached between $30 and $40 billion.
This figure represents a multiple of the second-highest liquidation event in the previous cycle, which occurred on April 18, 2021. CoinGlass noted that, structurally, the liquidations on that day were heavily skewed toward the long side, with long liquidations accounting for as much as 90% of total Bitcoin and crypto market liquidations. The platform stated that this indicates that prior to the event, BTC and related derivatives markets were in a state of extremely crowded long leverage.
What Was Responsible For The October 10 Crash
CoinGlass noted that from a casual perspective, the trigger for the October 10 Bitcoin and crypto market crash was Trump’s announcement of 100% tariffs on Chinese goods. This is said to have significantly elevated market expectations for another round of trade tensions between the two countries, prompting investors to shift to a “risk-off” mode.
However, beyond Trump’s announcement, CoinGlass stated that long leverage utilization in the derivatives market was elevated and that the basis between spot and futures was high. As such, the entire Bitcoin and crypto market was effectively in a fragile state characterized by “high valuation plus high leverage.” Therefore, the derivatives analysis platform suggested that Trump’s announcement was just a catalyst that brought the ‘House of Cards’ falling.
At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is trading at around $87,400, down almost 2% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
