Hey folks, if you've been anywhere near the crypto space lately, you know things got wild on October 10, 2025. We're talking a record-breaking liquidation event where over $19 billion in leveraged positions got wiped out in a flash. That's bigger than anything we saw during the COVID crash in 2020 or the FTX implosion in 2022. Triggered by news of potential 100% tariffs on Chinese goods from Trump, the market panicked hard—Bitcoin dropped from around $122K to $101K in minutes, Ethereum and Solana took double-digit hits, and altcoins? Many plunged 20% to 90%.

For those new to the term, liquidation happens when traders using leverage (borrowed money to amp up their bets) get forced to sell assets because the price moves against them too much. It's like a margin call on steroids, and when it cascades, it can tank the whole market.

Now, amid all this chaos, Qiao from AllianceDAO (that's @QwQiao on X) dropped a tweet that's got everyone talking: "v likely that one or multiple decent sized players blew up. v unlikely that there’s going be contagion similar to the one in 2021." (Check out the full thread here.) He's basically saying yeah, some big fish—think market makers or high-rolling traders—probably got rekt, but don't expect the domino effect we saw in 2022 when FTX's collapse dragged down the entire ecosystem.

Why does this matter for meme tokens, you ask? Well, at Meme Insider, we're all about those viral, community-driven coins that can moon or doom in a heartbeat. In this crash, meme coins got hammered—Dogecoin dropped 62%, Cardano (not a pure meme but often lumped in) fell 75%, and the Solana-based memecoin bubble? It burst, sending many low-cap tokens to near zero. Whales dumped hard, and retail investors felt the pain.

But here's where Qiao's take gets interesting for us meme enthusiasts. The 2022 contagion was brutal because it involved interconnected centralized entities like exchanges and lenders failing one after another—think Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, and Voyager all going belly up. This time, the blowup seems more isolated to overleveraged perps (perpetual futures contracts) on platforms like Hyperliquid and Aster. DeFi (decentralized finance) held up surprisingly well, with protocols showing resilience amid the storm.

For meme coins, this could mean a quicker recovery. Without systemic failures spreading like wildfire, the market might shake off the tourists and leverage bros, leaving room for genuine narratives to shine. Some insiders are even calling this the end of the "perp meta" and the start of a true meme coin super cycle. We've seen signs: despite the dip, tokens with strong communities and deflationary mechanics, like Wiki Cat Coin on BNB Chain, only dropped 12% and are already bouncing.

Of course, not everyone's optimistic. Critics point out that with global tensions rising and regulatory pressures (like the EU's MiCA delisting unlicensed stablecoins), investor confidence is shaky. Meme coins, being high-risk and often narrative-driven, could stay volatile. But if Qiao's right—and history suggests the market has matured with better risk management and more decentralized structures—we might avoid a prolonged bear winter.

What do you think? Is this just a healthy flush before the next leg up, or are we in for more pain? Drop your thoughts in the comments, and stay tuned to Meme Insider for the latest on how this shakes out for your favorite tokens. Remember, crypto's a rollercoaster—DYOR and only invest what you can afford to lose. 🚀