Bitcoin and ether order books now offer greater liquidity than they did before the October 2025 crash, but smaller cryptocurrencies continue to lose market depth, while spot trading volumes remain far below their peak during the sell-off.
A year after the largest liquidation event in crypto history, market liquidity shows a clear divide. Bitcoin and ether have attracted more resting buy and sell orders than they had on the day of the crash or at the beginning of 2026. Smaller tokens and spot trading activity, by contrast, have yet to recover in the same way.
On the morning of Oct. 10, 2025, bitcoin was trading around $122,600, several days after setting a record above $126,000. Within hours, its price dropped below $105,000, with much of the decline occurring in minutes during thin U.S. Friday evening trading after President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports. The sell-off triggered more than $19 billion in liquidations of leveraged positions in a single day.
To assess how liquidity has changed since then, CoinDesk Research compared market depth across major centralized exchanges on four dates: Jan. 1, 2025; Oct. 10, 2025; Jan. 1, 2026; and the current week. Market depth measures the dollar value of buy and sell orders available near an asset’s current price. Greater depth allows markets to absorb larger trades with less impact on prices.
Bitcoin’s order book is now deeper than it was on each of the three earlier comparison dates. On Oct. 7, approximately $11.7 million in orders sat within 1% of bitcoin’s market price. That represents an increase of roughly 75% from the crash date, compared with about $9 million at the start of 2026 and $6.9 million at the beginning of 2025.
The improvement cannot be explained by price movements alone. Bitcoin is trading at roughly one-third below its pre-crash level, meaning the increase in dollar-denominated depth reflects more capital committed by market makers rather than simply a change in the value of the cryptocurrency.
The strongest gains have occurred close to the market price, where market makers typically concentrate their quotes. At a distance of 5% from the price, however, bitcoin’s market depth remains around $24 million, broadly similar to its level in January 2025.
Ether has experienced an even stronger recovery in some areas. Order-book depth within 0.5% of its price has more than doubled since the crash, reaching approximately $4.2 million. Within a 1% range, depth has increased by around 75% to roughly $5.3 million, exceeding levels recorded at both January comparison points.
“The majors’ deepening is real capital, not a price effect,” CoinDesk Researcher Saksham Diwan said.
The rebuilt order books faced another test during this week’s market downturn. Bitcoin’s depth within 1% of its price declined by approximately 12% between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8. Ether’s narrowest depth range also contracted slightly, although liquidity in orders farther from the market price increased.
Altcoins have followed the opposite trajectory. Across CoinDesk Research’s basket of smaller cryptocurrencies, dollar-denominated market depth was highest on Jan. 1, 2025, and has declined at every subsequent measurement point.
Order-book depth within 5% of altcoin prices has fallen by roughly one-third since the beginning of 2025, reaching about $2 million. Within a narrower 1% range, depth has dropped by approximately one-sixth.
Measured in token units rather than dollars, altcoin liquidity appears more resilient. It reached a peak on Jan. 1, 2026, and has declined only modestly since then. However, analysts said the apparent strength largely reflects falling token prices, which can make token-denominated depth look healthier while the amount of capital committed to trading continues to shrink.
Spot trading volumes have also remained weak. CoinDesk Research data show that weekly spot volume across centralized exchanges averaged approximately $279 billion during the four weeks ending Sept. 27. That is nearly 65% below the $801 billion recorded during the week of the October 2025 crash.
Trading activity reached a low in August, when weekly spot volume dropped to around $135 billion, before roughly doubling. Despite the rebound, volumes remain significantly below the levels seen around the crash.
Crypto liquidity disappeared within hours on Oct. 10, 2025. The key question was where that capital would return once the turmoil subsided.
“A year ago, we wrote that liquidity was thin and fragmented, and that it was unclear where capital would rotate once the dust settled. We now have an answer: bitcoin and ether,” said Joshua de Vos, CoinDesk’s head of research. He added that market makers have returned to the leading cryptocurrencies, pushing their liquidity above pre-crash levels, while altcoin liquidity continues to weaken overall.
De Vos expects the gap to remain in place into next year, apart from a limited number of smaller tokens, as institutional investors continue to favor bitcoin and ether in terms of interest and trading volume.
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