One year after the largest forced-liquidation event in digital-asset history, Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $82,700, up 0.4% over the past 24 hours and still roughly a third below the $126,000 record it held before the flush.

The anniversary being marked is the October 10, 2025 liquidation cascade, which unfolded after US President Donald Trump announced plans to impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese imports. The announcement, made via Truth Social, cited China's export controls on rare-earth materials and set an effective date of November 1, 2025, on top of already existing duties.

The tariff shock triggered an immediate unwind of leveraged positions across crypto markets. Forced liquidations occur when exchanges automatically close a leveraged position once its margin no longer covers potential losses, and in fast-falling markets each round of closures can push prices lower and trigger the next wave of margin calls — a cascade. Roughly $19 billion in positions were forcibly liquidated within 24 hours, according to widely cited derivatives data, making it the largest forced-liquidation event ever recorded in the sector. More than 1.6 million trader accounts were wiped out in the sell-off. Altcoins recorded far steeper losses than Bitcoin, with several pairs briefly collapsing by double-digit percentages — and some by considerably more — on major exchanges as order books thinned. Thin order books offer fewer resting bids to absorb sell orders, which amplifies slippage once selling accelerates.

The cascade drew renewed scrutiny of perpetual futures markets, the behavior of market makers during extreme volatility, and the speed with which a single macro headline can compound into a historic drawdown. Perpetual futures — derivative contracts with no expiry that serve as the primary venue for crypto leverage — allow traders to take positions far exceeding their own capital, which is why a sudden macro surprise can force closures at this scale. Bitcoin had reached its all-time high of about $126,000 in early October 2025, only days before the event.

Trade tensions between Washington and Beijing later eased. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in South Korea at the end of October 2025, and the two sides agreed to a truce that included reductions in some tariffs and a pause on certain rare-earth export controls. Bitcoin, however, has not returned to its pre-cascade peak, and one year on it continues to trade well below the $126,000 record. The durability of that truce, alongside the state of derivatives positioning and order-book depth across major exchanges, remains the backdrop the sector watches when gauging how much leverage has returned a year after the record flush.

This content was first published on COINOTAG: https://en.coinotag.com/bitcoin-btc-near-82700-one-year-after-trump-tariff-liquidation-cascade