A Year After the $19 Billion Crash, Crypto Leverage Has Not Returned

The October 2025 crash wiped out a record $19 billion in leveraged bets in a single day and set off an industry-wide retrenchment. Twelve months later, the anniversary week's forced selling came in at about one-nineteenth of that figure, Bitcoin remains more than 30% below its record high, and the leverage that powered the boom has not been rebuilt.

Traders added borrowed money into the 10/10 anniversary week rather than cutting it, which left them exposed when Bitcoin slid toward $80,000 and more than $1 billion in bets were forcibly closed.

The Anniversary Flush Was a Nineteenth of 2025's

In the 24 hours to early Wednesday of anniversary week, $487.02 million in long positions were liquidated as Bitcoin fell 1.96%. That equals about $248 million in forced selling per 1% drop, against roughly $2.2 billion per 1% on 10-10, about nine times higher.

Bitcoin fell to $80,393 during the week's sell-off, with more than $1 billion liquidated in 24 hours and about $930 million of that from bets on rising prices. The 24-hour total was about one-nineteenth of last year's figure.

Funding and Open Interest Stay Below 2025 Levels

Three measures point the same way:

• CryptoQuant's Estimated Leverage Ratio climbed from about 0.234 on October 3 to roughly 0.256 on October 8, then eased only to about 0.250.
• Total open bets fell from about $154 billion to roughly $142 billion, CoinGlass data shows.
• Deribit's Bitcoin funding rate stood near 7.1% annualized in the anniversary week, against 26.9% before the 2025 crash. On OKX, funding averaged about 3.5% over the past seven days.

Coinbase Institutional's October 2026 report put Bitcoin's leverage ratio down for a fourth consecutive month, at its lowest since August 2024. Funding rates exceeded 8% annualized on only 1 of 28 exchange-day observations in October 2026, versus 18 of 32 before the 2025 crash, and turned negative three times.

Open interest still grew 4.0% in the week to 650,480 BTC, CoinGlass data shows, against 4.1% growth in the five days before the 2025 crash. The book is smaller than it was; the recent pace of rebuilding is not.

ETF Outflows and the Fed Meeting on October 27

US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $487 million in outflows, the most since late June, per SoSoValue. Glassnode analysts said existing holders rather than fresh money carried the latest rally, with new inflows from ETFs, stablecoins and corporate treasuries shrinking.

Federal Reserve minutes released October 7 showed most officials saw another rate hike as likely appropriate by year-end, with the 10-year Treasury yield near 5.3% and Brent crude near $105. The next Fed meeting on October 27 and 28 is the clearest scheduled trigger ahead, and a hike could push Bitcoin toward $82,300.

What Broke in October 2025

The cascade began with a tariff threat. President Donald Trump threatened an additional 100% tariff on Chinese imports, triggering a selloff across risk assets.

During the crash Bitcoin fell to about $106,560, Ethereum to $3,551 and Solana to $174. Perpetual futures open interest contracted 43% to $123 billion, including a 57% decline on Hyperliquid. Average token declines across the tracked market reached about 47%, exceeding the roughly 41% average in the May 2021 crash.

Ethena's USDe briefly traded around $0.65 on Binance during the cascade. The dollar token backed by hedged derivative trades has since shrunk 66% to $4.99 billion, CoinGecko data shows, part of the broader deleveraging since October.

Where the Next Leverage Cluster Sits

Bitcoin traded at $82,699, about 35% below its October 2025 record near $126,000, with the next cluster of leveraged bets near $75,000 per Glassnode. It peaked near $126,200 in the week of the 2025 crash and has not returned to that level.

The Fear and Greed Index read 64, or greed, on Saturday and dipped only to 59 during the Friday selloff, which points to caution rather than fear.

Eric Conner, a crypto veteran and co-author of EIP-1559, said traders deleveraged out of anniversary fear:

The bear market PTSD is so strong that people actually deleveraged for an anniversary to a liquidation event. Think how deep that PTSD goes if you're doing that. I'm telling you, there is mass under exposure and things actually look good.

That is one market participant's read, not a measurement. The funding, open interest and leverage ratio figures above are.

The clearest test is the Fed's October 27 and 28 meeting. A hike that lifts yields would press on a market where leverage is already thin, and the next cluster of leveraged bets sits near $75,000.