Bitcoin and ether (BTC/ETH) order books now hold more resting liquidity than they did on the day of the Oct. 10, 2025 flash crash or at the start of 2026, while altcoin liquidity keeps eroding and spot trading remains well below its October 2025 peak.

One year after the largest liquidation event in crypto history, the market's plumbing tells a split story. The majors' gains hold in dollar terms, reflecting more capital committed by market makers — trading firms that keep standing buy and sell orders posted on both sides of the book — rather than simply cheaper coins. Altcoin liquidity has moved the other way, with dollar depth falling steadily since early 2025 — a decline masked by falling token prices. Weekly spot trading volume is down nearly two-thirds from the crash week, though it has roughly doubled from an August low.

The Crash

Days after hitting a record high above $126,000, bitcoin stood at $122,600 on the morning of Oct. 10, 2025. Hours later it had plunged below $105,000, with much of the decline coming within minutes in thin Friday evening (U.S. time) trade after President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports. More than $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in a single day. A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged position when its collateral no longer covers losses, and cascading liquidations can strip liquidity from order books within hours.

Measuring the Recovery

To gauge how the market has healed since, CoinDesk Research compared market depth across major centralized exchanges on four dates: Jan. 1, 2025; Oct. 10, 2025; Jan. 1, 2026; and this week. Depth is the value of buy and sell orders resting near the current price. The deeper the book, the more volume a large trade can absorb without moving the market.

Bitcoin's order book is deeper now than on any of those earlier dates. On Oct. 7, about $11.7 million sat within 1% of the price — roughly 75% more than on crash day a year earlier, up from about $9 million at the start of 2026 and about $6.9 million at the start of 2025.

This is not a price effect. Bitcoin trades about one-third cheaper than before the crash, so a deeper book measured in dollars reflects more capital committed by market makers, not merely less valuable coins. Most of the improvement sits near the price, where market makers quote most actively. Further out, at 5% from the price, depth of around $24 million is roughly where it stood in January 2025.

Ether's recovery is, in some respects, stronger. Depth within 0.5% of the price has more than doubled since crash day to about $4.2 million. At 1%, it has risen about three-quarters to roughly $5.3 million, above both January readings.

"The majors' deepening is real capital, not a price effect," CoinDesk researcher Saksham Diwan said.

The rebuilt books got an early test this week. As the market sold off, bitcoin's 1% depth fell about 12% between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8. Ether's tightest band thinned slightly, though orders further from the price increased.

Altcoins Left Behind

For altcoins, the picture is reversed. In CoinDesk Research's basket of altcoins, dollar depth was greatest on Jan. 1, 2025, and has been lower on each date measured since. Depth at 5% from the price is down about a third since the start of 2025, around $2 million. Closer to the price, at 1%, it has fallen by about a sixth.

Measured in tokens, altcoin depth looks healthier: it peaked on Jan. 1 of this year and has eased only modestly since. But analysts said the token-unit recovery is mostly a function of falling prices, masking a steady erosion in committed capital. The dollar measure is the one that matters for how the market trades: thinner books absorb less volume before prices move.

Spot Trading Thins Out

Spot trading has not recovered. Weekly spot volume on centralized exchanges averaged around $279 billion over the four weeks to Sept. 27, according to CoinDesk Research — nearly two-thirds below the $801 billion traded in the week of the crash. Activity bottomed out in August, when weekly volume fell to around $135 billion, and has doubled since. Even so, it remains well short of the levels seen around the crash.

What It Means

Crypto's liquidity vanished within hours on Oct. 10, 2025. Where it would resurface was the open question.

"A year ago, we wrote that liquidity was thin and fragmented, and that it was unclear where capital would rotate once the dust settled. We now have an answer: bitcoin and ether," said Joshua de Vos, research lead at CoinDesk. "Market makers have returned to majors, with liquidity above pre-crash levels, whilst altcoin liquidity continues to trend down as a whole. Beyond a select few alts, I expect this divergence to persist into next year as majors continue to dominate institutional interest and volumes."

The split now defines how the market trades: the capacity to absorb large orders has pooled in bitcoin and ether, while most altcoins change hands in thinner books than before the crash. Whether spot volume keeps rebuilding from its August low, and whether the majors' books hold their new depth through the next bout of selling, are the readings that will show how durable this rebalancing is.

Source: CoinDesk