9 Largest Bitcoin Crashes in Historical past – Decrypt

The Oct. 10, 2025, crypto market crash worn out an unprecedented $19 billion value of leveraged Bitcoin and different crypto positions. But it surely was removed from one of many greatest share drops within the value of BTC on file.

From Mt. Gox’s penny commerce to the FTX collapse shock, right here’s each time Bitcoin’s value crashed arduous—and the circumstances that triggered it.

1.Mt. Gox Flash Crash (June 2011)

That is the large one. Bitcoin dropped roughly 99.9% on Mt. Gox after a hacker stole a whole lot of 1000’s value of BTC and bought it for only a penny. On the time, Mt. Gox facilitated roughly 90% of all Bitcoin buying and selling. As a result of Mt. Gox dominated Bitcoin buying and selling on the time, the change’s inner collapse briefly erased almost your entire market’s worth.

(Mt. Gox was probably the most dominant, however not the primary, Bitcoin change, in keeping with Guiness World Information. That title belongs to BitcoinMarket.)

The Mt. Gox hack truly occurred on June 15, 2011, however wasn’t disclosed till a couple of days later. A Mt. Gox auditor account was compromised and used to steal 740,000 BTC from clients and 100,000 from the corporate itself. When the exploiter dumped the BTC, the value plummeted to only pennies.

On the time, that quantity of Bitcoin would have been value about $460,000. At present costs, 840,000 Bitcoin could be value simply shy of $94 billion. That’s equal to your entire BTC treasuries of Michael Saylor’s Technique, Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings, Jack Maller’s XXI, Japan BTC juggernaut Metaplanet, Adam Again’s Bitcoin Customary Treasury Co., and newly public Bullish.

2.Mt. Gox Meltdown (April 2013)

Bitcoin dove from $265 to $150, shedding about 43%, in April 2013 due to what Mt. Gox would later name distributed denial of service, or DDoS, assaults. A DDoS assault overwhelms a goal URL with exterior requests to cease it from being accessed by reputable customers.

The assault meant that buying and selling on Mt. Gox stored freezing amid file visitors and prompted a pointy sell-off.

Mt. Gox stated on the time the assaults had grow to be frustratingly frequent. “Attackers wait till the value of Bitcoins reaches a sure worth, promote, destabilize the change, wait for everyone to panic-sell their Bitcoins, await the value to drop to a specific amount, then cease the assault and begin shopping for as a lot as they will. Repeat this two or 3 times like we noticed over the previous few days and so they revenue,” the change wrote on the time, in keeping with TechCrunch citing a now-deleted Fb publish.

3.China Ban Panic (December 2013)

In December 2013, the Folks’s Financial institution of China made it clear they didn’t need banks touching Bitcoin as a result of it was not backed by any nation or central authority.

Bitcoin had been experiencing a fast rise. In late November, Bitcoin had climbed above $1,000 for the primary time. On Dec. 5, Bitcoin had risen above $1,200. However two days later, it slipped about 50% to beneath $600 as traders digested the impression of China’s banking ban.

That is across the time that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had began publicly deriding Bitcoin as “a bubble.”

“You must actually stretch your creativeness to deduce what the intrinsic worth of Bitcoin is,” he stated throughout an interview with Bloomberg. “I haven’t been capable of do it. Perhaps any individual else can.”

4.One other China Ban (September 2017)

In early September 2017, China outlawed preliminary coin choices (ICOs), calling them an “unlawful” type of fundraising.

At first, markets brushed it off, viewing the transfer as a crackdown on tokens somewhat than Bitcoin itself. However panic set in every week later when experiences emerged that Beijing would additionally power home exchanges to shut. As BTCC, Huobi, and OKCoin confirmed their shutdowns on September 14 and 15, Bitcoin plunged about 25% in two days—from roughly $4,400 to $3,300.

The selloff marked the top of China’s dominance in crypto buying and selling and shifted international liquidity to Japan and Korea.

5.Leverage Unwind (December 2017)

By late 2017, Bitcoin had been on a tear and was nearing the $20,000 mark for the primary time in its historical past.

Then Bitcoin futures hitting regulated exchanges and too-hot sentiment created a drop that noticed BTC fall from about $16,500 on Dec. 22 to about $11,000 the subsequent day. In 24 hours, Bitcoin misplaced roughly one-third of its worth, 33.3%, marking the start of a year-long bear market.

Chicago Board Choices Futures Change (CBOE) and Chicago Mercantile Change (CME) had simply launched cash-settled Bitcoin futures contracts.

It’s not that there weren’t already crypto native Bitcoin derivatives exchanges—Deribit, BitMEX, and Kraken have been all energetic on the time. However the crypto native corporations have been offshore or unregulated then. The Wall Road fits most popular to make use of venues that already had licenses from the Commodities Futures Buying and selling Fee.

Months later, the Federal Reserve Financial institution of San Francisco revealed a report blaming the introduction of futures for the December crash.

“The fast run-up and subsequent fall within the value after the introduction of futures doesn’t seem like a coincidence,” the financial institution wrote. “Somewhat, it’s per buying and selling conduct that usually accompanies the introduction of futures markets for an asset.”

6.COVID: “Black Thursday” (March 12, 2020)

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic despatched traders right into a panic and Bitcoin into one among its greatest crashes.

The BTC crash occurred the day after the World Well being Group formally declared a world pandemic. The next day, BTC began just under $8,000 after which plummeted to about $4,850, shedding nearly half its worth.

Greater than $1 billion in leveraged lengthy positions have been liquidated that day, forcing cascading gross sales throughout BitMEX, Binance, and different exchanges.

The crash was extreme sufficient to have earned the “Black Thursday” moniker. However the excellent news is that the wipe out preceded a bullish 12 months, throughout which BTC smashed each conceivable file.

7.China crackdown: “Black Wednesday” (Might 19, 2021)

In mid-Might, BTC traders have been rattled when Tesla immediately yanked the plug on its plans to just accept Bitcoin as cost for its digital automobiles. The market recovered, however merchants solely acquired a brief reprieve.

Every week later, the Folks’s Financial institution of China China cracked down on Bitcoin miners, sending costs into freefall and the BTC hashrate (the quantity of mining energy that helps safe the community) plummeting.

Inside hours of Beijing reiterating its ban on crypto transactions, panic promoting and cascading liquidations wiped roughly $8 billion from leveraged positions.

This one was unhealthy sufficient to have earned the Black Wednesday nickname. Within the span of about 12 hours, Bitcoin fell roughly 30% from about $43,000 to $30,000. The losses didn’t cease there. By June 22, 2021, Bitcoin had dipped beneath $30,000 for the primary time in six months.

8.Celsius Freeze and Contagion (June 13, 2022)

Crypto lender Celsius froze withdrawals and swaps on June 12, citing “excessive market circumstances.” The transfer got here simply two months after TerraUSD’s collapse and sparked fears of a broader liquidity disaster.

It had solely been two months because the colossal collapse of TerraUSD, Terraform Labs’ algorithmic stablecoin. The token was designed to remain pegged 1:1 to the U.S. greenback, however bottomed out at 13 cents because it got here aside on the seams.

So when Celsius froze withdrawals, saying it was executed to “stabilize liquidity,” traders panicked. In its heyday, Celsius supplied clients excessive yield for crypto deposits. However when clients have been immediately lower off from their funds on the platform, Bitcoin bore the brunt.

The day the announcement went out, Bitcoin began round $26,000 after which fell 15% to beneath $22,000.

9.FTX Wobbles Forward of Chapter (Nov. 8-9, 2022)

When experiences surfaced that Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX change confronted a liquidity shortfall, panic swept the market.

On Nov. 8, Bitcoin fell greater than 17% in 24 hours, from about $20,500 to $16,900, and briefly touched $15,600 as FTX halted withdrawals.

Inside days, FTX filed for chapter—a collapse that will ripple via your entire crypto business, and whose impact could be felt for the subsequent two years.