Crypto bounces back from record wipeout on easing trade fears

Bitcoin was trading at about $115,000 on Monday morning in London, after sliding below $105,000 on Friday in the US.

Most major cryptocurrencies rebounded from steep losses suffered over a brutal weekend selloff, as President Donald Trump sought to quell concerns over trade between the US and China.

The combined market value of all cryptocurrencies rose more than 6% to top $4 trillion on Monday, according to CoinGecko data. Bitcoin was trading at about $115,000 on Monday morning in London, after sliding below $105,000 on Friday in the US. Smaller tokens also regained some ground, with Ether back to about $4,100 after falling to less than $3,500.

The gains coincided with Sunday statements from Trump and Vice President JD Vance signaling openness to a deal with China that eased trade tensions. A record $19 billion in crypto bets were erased and crypto prices tumbled after severe new China tariffs announced by Trump on Friday. Leverage, automatically triggered sales and low liquidity at odd hours for global trading compounded losses for traders.

“The rebound is driven by a conciliatory message from Trump,” said Richard Galvin, co-founder of hedge fund DACM. Most so-called altcoins — shorthand for smaller tokens — are still trading well below where they were on October 9, Galvin added. “Looking forward, headline risk, like throughout 2025, remains high and the market is exposed to any further trade escalation pronouncements or any other left-tail risks.”

The selloff’s impact was wide-ranging. Ethena USDe, the third-largest stablecoin, briefly lost its dollar peg. Binance, the biggest digital-assets exchange, experienced technical glitches. More than 1.6 million traders were liquidated, according to data tracker Coinglass.

Executives head into the week wondering who bore the brunt of the losses. So far, they haven’t uncovered any evidence of a blowup — a nagging fear in crypto markets after previous collapses, such as that of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, sparked daisy-chains of failures.

Funding rates — the interest paid by bullish traders to take on leverage for futures bets — have plunged to their lowest levels since around the time of FTX’s implosion in 2022, among “the most severe leverage resets in crypto history,” Coinglass said in a research note.

Caladan, a crypto market maker, said in a research note that the crash caused open interest in Bitcoin and Ether options to halve to $33 billion and $19 billion, respectively. That reset will “place a surer footing under pricing over the medium term,” Galvin said.

Bitcoin reached a record of $126,251 as recently as October 6, and remains up 23% for the year, fueled in large part by Trump’s pro-crypto policies in the US.