Overview

• Alex Thorn says high leverage collided with thin order books, with exchange auto‑deleveraging squeezing liquidity at the worst point.
• Roughly $19 billion in positions were liquidated as bitcoin fell from about $126,300 to near $107,000 and ether dropped from roughly $4,800 to around $3,500.
• Risk appetite weakened as chip stocks softened, a Federal Reserve governor struck a hawkish tone, regional‑bank concerns resurfaced, and traditional havens outperformed with gold and silver at records and the 10‑year yield below 4%.
• Thorn notes reduced buying from digital‑asset treasury programs due to lower equity valuations, reinforcing near‑term fragility even after the initial washout.
• He highlights AI capital spending by hyperscalers and chipmakers, growing use of dollar‑linked stablecoins as payment rails, and real‑world asset tokenization moving toward implementation, with a constructive view on bitcoin’s “digital gold” role and on ETH and SOL exposure to these flows.