One Year After Crypto's Biggest Crash: Bitcoin Recovers, Altcoins Lag
Bitcoin and ether trading is healthier than before the Oct 2025 crash, but smaller coins and overall activity remain weak.
One year ago, the crypto market suffered its biggest-ever meltdown. On October 10, 2025, Bitcoin plunged from around $122,600 to below $105,000 in just minutes — triggered by President Trump announcing 100% tariffs on Chinese imports. A full year later, the picture is mixed.
To understand the recovery, we need one key idea: liquidity (how easily you can buy or sell something without moving its price). Experts measure this using order book depth (the total value of buy and sell orders sitting near the current price). The deeper the book, the bigger a trade the market can handle smoothly.
Bitcoin and ether have bounced back strongly:
- Bitcoin now has about $11.7 million in orders within 1% of its price — roughly 75% more than on crash day.
- Ether's depth within 0.5% of its price has more than doubled, to about $4.2 million.
- This is "real capital," not just an effect of lower prices — meaning market makers (firms that provide buy/sell orders to keep trading smooth) have returned.
- Their dollar depth has fallen steadily since early 2025.
- Depth at 5% from the price is down about a third, to around $2 million.
- Falling token prices hide just how much real money has drained away.
The takeaway: money is flowing back, but mostly into the two biggest coins. As one researcher put it, capital "rotated" into Bitcoin and ether, while most altcoins keep weakening. Analysts expect this gap to continue into next year, as big institutional investors favor the major coins.
This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/10/10/one-year-after-10-10-bitcoin-and-ether-liquidity-have-rebuilt-but-other-altcoins-still-face-risks