Stocks with the most significant single-day selloffs will likely reveal more profound structural or sentiment-related weaknesses. Understanding how rapid price dips are formed facilitates setting expectations for recovery or further decline.
Markets have witnessed a spate of tokens registering double-digit declines.Speculation surrounds what's gone wrong and where things are heading. Expert analysis and new data shed light on the forces behind unprecedented value declines. How exactly does every primary losing token's story unfold? The following article analyzes the crypto charts, central stimulants behind top loser tokens, and outlines future possibilities.
Flash crashes and leverage risks
Coins like ZKJ from Polyhedra Network plummeted from $1.95 to $0.38 within just a couple of hours, an 80% decline that erased vast amounts of value. This highlights the fragility of coins with thin liquidity during sudden market stress. Such a rapid flash crash directly resulted from liquidity retracting and increasing sales before buyers could step in. The OM Token has experienced a fast 90% crash and subsequent emergency measures due to similar reasons.
Binance Research noted in a commentary that tokens with limited circulation and high leverage are disproportionately exposed in situations of market stress, highlighting design issues in their tokenomics.
Market sentiment, FUD and macro ripples
A shift in the herd mentality commonly causes sudden price dips. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) can spread through markets when headlines about rumors or regulations hit. Events like outages, smart contract exploits, or sudden governance changes often spark sharp reactions, as traders rush to reprice perceived risks. In addition, commentators report that panicky sales are often preceded by large wallet transfers into exchanges.
Macro stress adds another dimension. There are concerns about delayed interest-rate cuts and the overarching tightening of finances having intermittently induced steep drawdowns. Broader market liquidity, funding costs, and the strength of the dollar can all spill into crypto markets, influencing both short-term momentum and long-term valuations.
Bitcoin's gravitational pull and altcoin contagion
A decline in the price of Bitcoin typically drags altcoins along. Since many of them are still traded against BTC, even small dips in Bitcoin’s value can result in much bigger losses across smaller tokens, leaving them open to more agressive sell-offs.
Institutional traders usually close high-risk trades first. This then leads to widespread contagion as liquidity drains from weaker markets. Funds may rotate capital out of volatile assets into safer positions, which in turn further pushes the drawdown and amplifies the sell pressure on altcoins.
Crypto chart observers can see the same process play out in real time: altcoin retracements typically gain speed after Bitcoin notches consecutive red candles, solidifying Bitcoin's reputation as a market anchor.
The hidden accelerant
Forced liquidations tend to hasten sell-offs. For instance, during the early April 2024 volatility, close to $1 billion in liquidations were recorded in 24 hours and the majority were for long positions.
These are natural occurrences as over-leveraged positions are closed out, generating cascading sell orders, which in turn deepens losses and causes further liquidations. The domino effect can turn a contained dip into a market-wide correction, as trading platforms automatically sell assets into already thinning liquidity. It's why dips can be steeper and faster than rallies.
At the same time, forced liquidations also serve as a reset mechanism. By flushing out excessive leverage, they often mark the end of overheated phases and set the stage for healthier market conditions going forward.
What's next? Rebound, stabilization or deeper slump?
Future prospects for recovery are token-specific. Tokens with low liquidity and a centrally distributed supply may not recover easily. For the OM Token scenario, price models indicated regions of stability in the $0.6-0.8 range, with a potential downside slide to $0.3-0.5. However, a recovery back up to $1.5-2 would require stronger governance and renewed investor confidence.
Market-level signs also suggest selective resilience. Binance Research says memecoin trading on Pump.Fun dropped from $119 billion in January to $44 billion in February 2025, a 63% monthly decline. Solana's DeFi total value locked, however, rose roughly 30% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2025, bucking softness seen elsewhere.
Concurrently, sales for NFTs have moderated from first-year highs. Selected metrics noted volumes plummeting sharply in mid-2025 compared to the peak in early January, describing the universal retracement in speculative areas.
Context and perspective
These are prototypical weaknesses in crypto markets: poor token models, sentiment-driven cycles, contagion correlated with Bitcoin, and liquidation spirals. Binance Research analysts have identified higher-capitalization tokens as more shock-resistant, with smaller, leveraged tokens remaining the most at risk.
History shows us that tokens without explicit governance or community distrust are the first to falter during downtimes. At the same time, assets collateralized with deep liquidity pools and verifiable fundamentals are capable of withstanding volatility with less disruption.