「312」 5th Anniversary, Market Respect, Forever and Ever

March 2025 doesn't seem to be going well either, and it even seems that the mood is worse than it was in early 2023 after experiencing consecutive rug pulls. Bitcoin finally received the "favor" of the global hegemon, the U.S. President, after more than a decade, but it turned out to be more talk than action. The promised Bitcoin reserve hasn't bought a penny, and the self-issued token has little liquidity to begin with. In Trump's first 7 weeks in office, the entire crypto market evaporated $1 trillion. What's even more frightening is that we don't know where the bottom is. The industry seems to have made a lot of progress, but those deeply rooted in the industry know that the space for innovation and imagination is shrinking.

The market is always right, there is no doubt about that. The cryptocurrency market, which has long been closely tied to the U.S., the U.S. dollar, and the U.S. stock market, is no exception. On the "312" third anniversary (in some sense, a day symbolizing the official connection between cryptocurrency and the U.S. dollar), at a time when the market still needs confidence, BlockBeats once again "revisits" the horrifying 24 hours of the past, reminding itself to always approach the market with awe, regardless of bull or bear.

We go from the specific to the general. Starting at 6:30 p.m. on March 12, 2020, cryptocurrency led by Bitcoin suddenly experienced a major price drop, catching everyone off guard. The quotes on trading platforms kept flashing, with the price of Bitcoin starting from $7,000 and plummeting uncontrollably at a rate of up to 5% per minute. $6,800, $6,500, $6,000, $5,000, $4,500—all shattered everyone's hopes. Around 7 a.m. on the 13th, after a brief stabilization, Bitcoin once again plummeted, falling to $3,800 at one point. Within 24 hours, it had dropped by nearly 50%.

According to Coin Metrics data, within just 24 hours, over 100,000 people across the network were liquidated, with the largest single liquidation occurring on Huobi, totaling approximately $58.32 million worth of BTC. The total liquidated amount across the network reached $2.93 billion, equivalent to about RMB 20.5 billion.

Even more dramatically, at that time, BitMEX, which had the largest short position, suspended its trading function on the morning of the 13th, a move known as "pulling the plug." In a way, this move saved Bitcoin. During the free fall, there were no buy orders on BitMEX. If the plug hadn't been pulled, the price of Bitcoin on that platform would have gone to zero. Other trading platforms were also in chaos, with arbitrage bots already out of scope, causing Bitcoin price spreads between platforms to reach $1,000.

Bitcoin's crash wasn't due to any issue with the asset itself but was merely a microcosm of the global financial market's black swan event.

Looking at the global macro asset classes, on February 19, 2020, after Nasdaq hit a historical high of 9,838 and started to decline the next day, it marked the beginning of a global market free fall. Due to the disappointment in the U.S. economic stimulus policy and market concerns about the novel coronavirus, U.S. stocks remarkably experienced historical moments of two circuit breakers within a single week, with the Nasdaq index plunging by 8.4% in a single day.

During this process, global stock markets saw escalating panic, with the three major European indices and Asia-Pacific markets experiencing varying degrees of pullback. At least 10 countries' indices triggered circuit breakers, halting trading and entering a technical bear market.

The commodities market experienced an even more severe bloodbath. Due to the failure of the OPEC production cut agreement and the shift in supply and demand dynamics caused by the economic environment, the U.S. crude oil index plummeted over 8% on March 6. Then, on March 7, it experienced another historically rare plunge, with intraday losses exceeding 30%.

Everyone knows the rest of the story. But "312" serves as a warning bell. No matter how strong a bull market is, not everyone can walk away unscathed. Respect the market, always remind yourself to have risk control. Your principal is your capital, the foundation for surviving in the market.