what happened to crypto

The recent significant event in crypto is a sharp market downturn triggered by escalating global trade tensions, especially due to the US President Donald Trump's announcement of 100% tariffs on Chinese tech imports starting November 1, 2025. This policy move caused widespread risk-off sentiment leading to massive sell-offs across crypto and traditional markets. Specifically, Bitcoin's price briefly dropped below $101,000 before recovering somewhat to above $110,000. Ethereum also saw a steep fall under $3,300 before bouncing back above $3,800. Over $19 billion in crypto positions were liquidated in 24 hours, marking the largest liquidation event in crypto history by far—more than during the FTX collapse or the COVID crash. The total crypto market capitalization lost roughly $200 billion before slightly recovering to around $3.83 trillion. The sell-off is mainly attributed to macroeconomic spillovers such as rising yields and trade war fears between the US and China, rather than internal crypto-specific problems. Despite this dramatic correction and volatility, Bitcoin dominance remains steady at 58%, and many analysts view this as a short-term market reaction rather than the start of a prolonged bear market. Institutional demand and adoption for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continue to provide structural support for the longer term. In summary, crypto markets recently experienced historic liquidations and price drops driven by geopolitical tensions and tariffs, causing broad liquidation cascades, but recovery signs and strong fundamentals persist in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty.