The crypto futures market just had one of those days. Over $871 million in positions were liquidated in a 24-hour span ending January 19, with the overwhelming majority of the pain concentrated on traders who were betting prices would go up.

Long positions accounted for roughly $786 million to $788 million of that total, according to CoinGlass data. In English: for every dollar lost by shorts, longs lost roughly nine. That’s not a balanced correction. That’s a one-sided flush.

What triggered the cascade

The catalyst was geopolitical, not technical. Statements from the Trump administration regarding tariffs on EU imports injected a fresh dose of uncertainty into markets that were already trading on…