Altcoin Boom May Never Come Back: How Crypto Trading Has Changed in 2026

On October 10 last year, a Friday, a tariff headline hit an over-leveraged market, and roughly $19 billion in positions were liquidated within 24 hours, most of them longs, most of them retail.

Bitcoin fell from above $120,000 to around $105,000. Solana lost 40% before finding a bid, and more than 1.6 million accounts went to zero or close to it. Prices eventually stabilized. The people did not come back the same way.

Ten months on, October 10 will be remembered less for the crash itself than for what it did to retail behavior. The risk appetite survived. It just stopped showing up in the same places.

A Drawdown for Some, a Wipeout for Others

The October 10 crash showed how different spot and futures trading are, if it wasn't clear before. A spot trader took a brutal hit that day, but they still held on to their coins. They can still wait for prices to eventually go back up. But a perpetual futures trader likely has nothing left.

… Continue reading the full article at the original source below.