Bitcoin is sitting around $82,000 as I write on October 15, but the ride has been rough. Around last Thursday, roughly $1 billion of leveraged bets across crypto got wiped out in about a day (the exact total depends on the tracker and which 24-hour window it counts). Monday brought hundreds of millions more. Then on Wednesday a hotter-than-expected inflation report was followed by another flush: $942 million in 24 hours, about 92% of it from traders betting on higher prices (CoinGlass). And last Saturday was the one-year anniversary of 10-10, the largest liquidation event on record.
I want to use all of that to say something I believe and haven't said plainly yet. This bull run is going to have corrections, and at least one of them could be big. That doesn't mean the bull run is over. It means the road up looks like every road up before it: ugly, loud and uneven.
Standard disclaimer: I'm not a financial advisor, this isn't financial advice, and everything below is my own read of public data. Forecasts are opinions, not facts. Do your own research and never risk money you can't afford to lose.
First, the Plain-English Version
- Leverage means trading with borrowed money. It magnifies gains and losses.
- A liquidation is what happens when the price moves against a leveraged trader and the exchange force-sells their position. When thousands of longs get liquidated at once, the forced selling pushes the price down even more.
- A flush is a wave of forced selling that clears out borrowed bets in a hurry.
- A "long" is a bet that the price goes up. A "short" is a bet that it goes down. Most of the recent liquidations were longs.
- A correction is a sizable drop from a recent high inside a bigger uptrend. A bear market is when the whole trend turns down. They look alike on the day and very different a year later. Bitcoin is still about 35% below its October 2025 record, so some people say we're still in a bear market. My view is that a new uptrend began at the July low, and I laid out why in my September 30 post.
My Calls, Stated Up Front
- The low is still in place. I haven't changed my view from my September 30 post: the July low, around $58K (the lowest close came June 30, the lowest trade July 1), was the bottom of this cycle.
- Corrections are coming, plural. I expect at least one to be 20% or more from a high. The recent closing high is $86,603 (September 21), so 20% down is about $69K.
- A big one, 30% or more, is possible without ending the bull market, as long as Bitcoin bounces back quickly. That's about $61K. A drop of about a third lands right back at the July low.
- I think leverage will cause most of the damage. The pattern is a flush, a scary headline, then a recovery. The last two weeks were that pattern in miniature.
What Happened the Last Two Weeks
- Bitcoin keeps stalling near $87,000. Since September 21 it has touched $87.1K to $87.4K on three separate days and has not closed a single day above $86,603.
- ETF money is choppy. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost about $681 million in the week of October 5 to 9, took in about $176 million on October 13, and lost roughly $150 million to $260 million on October 14, depending on the tracker. That's not a clear turn in either direction.
- The Fed is the big headwind. The minutes released October 7 showed every official backed September's rate hike, and most expect another before year-end. Wednesday's inflation report came in at 3.7% over the past year, up from 3.4% in August and above the roughly 3.6% economists expected. After it, estimates of an October 27 to 28 hike jumped from about 20% to somewhere between 30% and 50%, depending on the source and the time of day. With Treasury yields above 5%, safe money pays well, which makes risky assets harder to love.
- Oil jumped about 4% on October 8 after attacks on tankers in the Gulf region, adding to the nervous mood.
- Bitcoin closed Wednesday at $81,562. After all of that, it is only about 6% below its September high.
One Year Ago: The 10-10 Flush
On October 10, 2025, about $19 billion of leveraged positions were liquidated in a single day by the first count, the record (later estimates run higher), after President Trump threatened an additional 100% tariff on Chinese imports. Bitcoin had closed at $124,753 on October 6. By October 10 it was at $113,214, and by June 30 of this year it was at $58,559, down 53% from the peak. In my read, that flush was the first crack, not the whole story. It's why I take liquidation weeks seriously even when the price move looks small.
What Past Bull Runs Did
I measured Bitcoin's drops using daily closing prices (Yahoo Finance). Intraday swings were worse. Here are five big corrections inside earlier bull runs:
| When | Drop | Peak to bottom | Back above the old high |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 11 to Jul 16, 2017 | -34.8% | 35 days | August 2017 |
| Sep 1 to Sep 14, 2017 | -35.5% | 13 days | October 2017 |
| Apr 13 to Jul 20, 2021 | -53.1% | 98 days | October 2021 |
| Mar 13 to Sep 6, 2024 | -26.2% | 177 days | November 2024 |
| Jan 21 to Apr 8, 2025 | -28.1% | 77 days | May 2025 |
The stretch from mid-2019 to March 2020 was worse still: about -62% ($13,016 to $4,971 on closing prices), including the COVID crash. After early 2019, Bitcoin never closed near its December 2018 low again, and it was back above its 2019 high by October 2020. The 2021 drop cut Bitcoin by more than half in about three months, with China's mining crackdown and Tesla reversing course on accepting Bitcoin among the drivers, and it still recovered to a record.
Two takeaways. First, big drops were normal. Counting only the climbing phases of the last two cycles (December 2018 to November 2021 and November 2022 to October 2025, about 5.8 years), I count seven drops of 20% or more, roughly one every ten months (one of them barely clears 20%). Second, none of them broke the cycle's low.
About 100 days after the low in earlier cycles, Bitcoin was up roughly 20% to 50%, near where this one is now (about +40%). In my last post I used 90 days, so the exact numbers differ slightly. In each of those cycles, a drop of 28% or more still came later. Three cycles is a tiny sample, and Bitcoin is less volatile than it used to be, so I'm not calling it a law. But since the July low the worst pullback on a closing basis has been just 7%. That's unusually smooth.
What a Correction From Here Could Look Like
Measured from the $86,603 closing high:
- 10% down: about $78K. Barely a headline.
- 20% down: about $69K. It would feel like a crash and look normal.
- 30% down: about $61K. A big correction, similar to most of the drops in the table (26% to 36%).
- A third down: about $58K. Back at the July low. If it broke, I'd be wrong about the low.
- 50% down: about $43K. That isn't a correction, it's a different market.
I'm calling the first three realistic.
Where Leverage Stands
Each flush clears out weak, borrowed bets, which is healthy in a way. A useful gauge is the funding rate, the fee that traders betting on a rise pay to hold their positions. Before 10-10 it ran far above normal, a sign everyone was crowded on the same side. This week it dropped to around zero, even slightly negative, and only a little over half of traders were betting on a rise. That is a calmer setup than 10-10, though leverage can rebuild quickly. The thing to watch is price near highs with funding climbing and a lot of new leveraged longs piling in. That's how a small flush becomes a big one.
The Case Against Me
- It looks like a reset, not a cascade. Funding is low, and Bitcoin took three flush days in two weeks and is still within about 6% of its high.
- The sellers may be exhausted. Some CryptoQuant data showed recent buyers sending coins to exchanges at a loss last week, which can be a sign of panic selling. Analysts disagree on whether it was real capitulation (a final wave of give-up selling), and panic selling often shows up near local lows. That's my interpretation, not a rule.
- Corporate buying continues, but small. Strategy's latest filings show 334 BTC bought October 1 to 4 and 250 BTC bought October 5 to 11, versus 1,665 BTC the week of September 21 to 27. Its average cost is about $75.4K, so Bitcoin is still above it.
- Bulls can simply keep going. Not every run has a deep dip right when I want one.
What I'm Watching
- The $80K area. Bitcoin dipped to about $79,800 earlier today before bouncing, so $80K is already being tested. The October 8 low was around $80,350. A daily close below $80K would get my attention.
- The October 27 to 28 Fed meeting. Another hike would push yields higher, which is the most credible trigger for a real correction.
- ETF flows. One green day isn't a trend.
- Leverage rebuilding near highs.
How I Graded My Last Post
On September 30 I said to expect liquidations on the way up and that a 20% pullback would "feel like a crash and look like normal behavior." We got three flush days in two weeks and only about a 6% drop from the high. I also listed four warning signs. One is partly flashing: ETF flows were negative for a week while price stalled under $87K (I said several weeks). The others haven't triggered. There's been no new low, no weekly close below the 200-week average, and yields have stayed roughly flat, with the 10-year around 5.2%. The $97K to $100K wall hasn't been tested because Bitcoin never got past $87.4K.
What Would Prove Me Wrong
- A clean run to $97K to $100K without a 20% pullback from $86.6K, with leverage staying calm. I'd happily say I was wrong.
- If Bitcoin closes a week below the 200-week average (about $66K) or makes a new low under the July low, I'll call this a bounce, not a bull run, and say so here. A quick dip to $61K that recovers within days wouldn't change my view. A week of closes down there would.
What This Means for You
If you just own some Bitcoin and don't trade it, a 30% drop turns $1,000 into $700. That has happened in past bull markets and, so far, has been followed by recoveries, but only if you were still holding and didn't need the money. My own plan hasn't changed: buy a fixed amount on a schedule, never use borrowed money, and keep some cash for the pullbacks I expect. If you run a business that accepts crypto, swings like this are why I'd use a payment processor that converts payments to dollars instantly. I covered that in should your small business accept crypto.
And when a headline says "a billion dollars wiped out," ask the boring question I keep asking: did the market break, or did leverage get flushed? For more on how I read these flushes, see what the June liquidation lows looked like and my public scorecard.
Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal opinions and is not financial advice. Always do your own research and consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions. Cryptocurrency is extremely volatile and you can lose money.