One year ago, a single tariff announcement erased more than $19 billion in leveraged crypto bets in about a day. It remains the largest derivatives liquidation episode the market has ever recorded.

The trigger came from Washington, not from inside crypto. President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on Chinese imports, and markets that had been priced for good news suddenly had to reprice for a trade war.

Crypto derivatives took the hit fastest. Forced liquidations topped $19 billion across exchanges within a 24-hour window.

The damage reached over 1.6 million accounts. Most of the pain fell on traders betting prices would rise: long positions made up roughly $16–17 billion of the total.

Bitcoin had set an all-time high of nearly…