Global financial markets experienced a severe, cross-asset liquidation event, wiping out over $10 trillion in value within 24 hours. The sell-off was triggered by a violent breakdown in precious metals, which rapidly spread to equities and cryptocurrencies, indicating a broad, systemic liquidity shock rather than isolated weakness in any single asset class.
Precious metals were at the epicenter of the crash. Gold, an asset known for its stability with average annual returns around 3%, plummeted by nearly three times that amount in a single day. This extraordinary move erased approximately $4 trillion from the gold market's value. Silver faced an even more aggressive decline, falling by the equivalent of five times its average annual return and wiping out an estimated $1.1 trillion in market value. Analysts described the silver move as "one of the most violent market events of the year," driven by forced selling and margin calls in a thin, leveraged market, including the full liquidation of an $11 million long position.
The crypto market was pulled into the downdraft as risk appetite evaporated. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell 4.78% to about $2.83 trillion. The sell-off triggered over $770 million in long position liquidations within 30 minutes. Bitcoin led the decline, trading around the $82,000-$83,000 range after dipping into the high-$70,000s intraday. Ethereum slid to near $2,700-$2,800 from levels closer to $3,000, and Solana traded around $115 after swinging between $113 and $123.
Market experts frame the event as a system-wide leverage flush, where cryptocurrencies acted as a "high-beta liquidity release valve." The simultaneous decline across traditional safe havens and risk assets suggests the sell-off was driven by institutional-level rebalancing and forced deleveraging, rather than retail panic. Investors are now bracing for continued volatility as markets assess whether liquidity will stabilize or if further unwinds are imminent.
