 | DeFi Market Journal The Sunday Briefing · Issue 3 · 11 October 2026 |
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$19 billion, gone in a day
A year ago this weekend, on 10 and 11 October 2025, a tariff threat against China hit the markets and crypto fell hard. In 24 hours CoinGlass counted $19.13 billion of leveraged positions wiped out, across 1,618,240 traders.
Most of them weren't holding coins. They were holding perpetual futures, bets on a price that never expire, usually with borrowed money. Now Kalshi and Coinbase sell them to Americans too. Before anyone you know opens one, they should know how the margin, the funding and the liquidation work. That's this week's guide, and it's the one to read first.
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If you read one thing this week
How Do Perpetual Futures Work in Crypto?
Put up $100 at 5x and you control $500 of bitcoin. At 6x, Kalshi says a 17% move against you can wipe out your money. The guide walks through leverage, the funding payment you owe every few hours, and the liquidation that closes you out automatically.
Read the guide →
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This week |
 | For founders Bitcoin's whitepaper ran nine pages. The guide covers what a buyer needs from yours, in order, and the legal lines: in the EU, the MiCA rules want a set format and notice to your regulator 20 working days before you publish. |
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 | Explainer Stake your ether without running a validator and get back a token you can still sell or use. It pays a little over 2% a year. In September 2025, getting your ether back out meant a queue of more than 46 days. The guide covers what that trade-off is worth. |
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 | Liquid It costs nothing on Liquid but gas, and Liquid writes the smart contract for you. The guide goes screen by screen: what to prepare, which token type to pick, how the fee sliders split your mint, and the five mistakes that make uploads fail. There's a two-minute video too. |
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 | Liquid Applications close on Friday 16 October, and the mint follows a week or so later: 10,000 apes at 0.08 ETH on Ethereum. |
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 | New We've put 34 short videos on YouTube this week, one for each guide, from what DeFi is to spotting a rug pull. Each one ends with a question. Answer it in the comments and I'll read them. |
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Pass it on
Know someone thinking about trading with leverage? Send them this issue first.
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 | Were you trading on 10 October last year? Hit reply and tell me what happened. I read them. |
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Links to Liquid NFTs in our articles are affiliate links. News and education, not financial advice. Leveraged trading can wipe out everything you put in, and NFTs and tokens can lose all their value.
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