Plus: Suspicious exchange activity during the crash

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🍍 Market flavor today

Crypto Market Cap: $3.92T 4.13% (24H)
Name		Price	24H	7D
	Bitcoin BTC	$115,170.95	3.31%	-7.84%
	Ethereum ETH	$4,146.41	8.26%	-11.20%
	BNB BNB	$1,274.36	2.89%	4.92%
	XRP XRP	$2.59	9.23%	-13.86%
	Solana SOL	$196.08	9.08%	-16.54%

It was a beautiful week in the crypto neighborhood. Bitcoin was chillin' above $120K, Ethereum was holding over $4.3K, everyone was relaxed, vibes were calm...

And then, out of nowhere, traders started hearing the agitating, grating sound of...

...red candles.

😎 → 😀🕶️🤏 → 😐

So... wtf was that?

Well, over the weekend, Donald Trump dropped this bombshell of a threat: 100% tariffs on Chinese imports starting November 1 + strict export control on critical US-made software.

And Beijing warned they'd retaliate if Trump didn't back down.

From there, the chain reaction was this: tariff threat → retaliation risk → global risk-off → crypto eats it:

👉 Bitcoin dipped to $111K;

👉 Ethereum tanked to $3.6K;

👉 The total crypto market cap fell to ~$3.6T;

👉 And $18.6B in leveraged positions got liquidated across major exchanges in a day - one of the biggest wipeouts since March. (Crypto.com's CEO had thoughts on this, btw - more on that below.)

The good news: by today, the market's already bouncing back, because the trade war panic seems to be cooling down a bit.

👉 China's Ministry of Commerce said it was ready to strengthen dialogue on trade;

👉 And Trump posted this:

Moving forward, we're watching how the trade war rhetoric evolves.

If it chills, we could prolly see crypto grind higher again - institutional demand is still strong underneath all the drama.

But if things escalate again, we could easily retest those weekend lows.

Anyways. Day survived. Grab water. Stretch. And maybe don't regret whatever position you had - that crash wasn't personal.

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🥝 Memecoin harvest

Gains so dumb they might be genius 🤓

Data as of 04:10 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

🤨 Crypto(.)com CEO has some thoughts...

Like we said a minute ago - ~$20B in leveraged trades got wiped out in a matter of hours over the weekend.

That means traders who borrowed money to make bigger bets had their positions automatically sold off as prices dropped.

It was fast... too fast? 🤨

According to Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, it might not have been just pure bad luck 👀

He thinks that regulators should take a closer look at the exchanges that saw the most damage - because some of them might not have played fair while users were getting wiped out.

Now, here's why he's sussing them out:

In crypto, there's a built-in safety system called a liquidation engine. When prices move too quickly, it automatically sells risky positions to stop things from getting out of hand - kinda like an emergency brake for the market.

But during the crash, that "emergency brake" looked more like a car skidding on ice.

Traders across several platforms said the systems lagged, froze, or showed weird prices that didn't match the rest of the market.

That meant people couldn't close trades, hedge their bets, or even log in - and then, booyaka, their accounts were liquidated anyway.

So, Marszalek started asking some Qs:

👉 Did any exchanges freeze up when prices were crashing?

👉 Were the trades priced accurately?

👉 How strong are their systems for monitoring trades and catching illegal activity?

👉 And are their internal trading teams actually kept separate from user data - or can they see when people are about to get crushed and profit from it?

Basically, he raised concerns about conflicts of interest, sketchy pricing, and a lack of transparency.

Marszalek's main point was this: if exchanges can't stay functional during volatility - or worse, if they're making money while their users are losing it - then regulators need to take a good look at how these platforms actually run.

Because when one exchange sneezes, the entire market catches a cold - and this time, billions got wiped out in the process.

Now, it might sound... strange hearing a crypto CEO asking for more regulation. Usually, they're doing everything they can to avoid it.

But this time's different. His call for oversight isn't anti-crypto - it's more like pro-survival.

He's basically saying: "If we want crypto to be taken seriously, we can't keep pretending market crashes are just bad luck. We need to prove the system's fair."

Which he's not entirely wrong about. Crypto is an industry that holds trillions in value, impacts millions of users, and is slowly getting into the real financial system.

And with that kind of influence comes real responsibility.

🍋 News drops you can't miss

🇲🇽 Need to send money to Mexico? We rounded up the top ways for you to send it fast, cheap, and stress-free.

🥩 Steak 'n Shake backed out of its plan to accept Ethereum. That's because it caught a lot of heat online, mostly from Bitcoin supporters.

🇺🇸 The US Senate approved the GAIN Act. Basically, it says companies have to sell top-tier AI and HPC chips to US buyers before sending them anywhere else.

⚙️ Monero launched a new client update called Fluorine Fermi. It's meant to make the network safer by blocking spy nodes that try to snoop on users.

💳 Jack Dorsey, the guy behind Square, thinks small Bitcoin payments shouldn't be taxed. He says dropping the tax on tiny crypto transactions would make it a lot easier to actually spend Bitcoin on everyday stuff.

🍌 Juicy memes