On March 12 2020, as global markets panicked over the escalating COVID-19 pandemic, Bitcoin suffered one of its sharpest single-day drops on record — a collapse of roughly 50% within hours, later nicknamed "Black Thursday" by the crypto community. The sell-off hit every risk asset that week, but crypto's thin liquidity made the move especially violent.
What made the day brutal to trade was the cascading nature of the decline: forced liquidations on leveraged exchanges piled on top of organic selling, pushing price down faster than order books could absorb. Bounces failed repeatedly, and the exchange infrastructure itself struggled under the load, turning a bad day into a chaotic one.
Same engine, same hidden right-hand side — a different day's problem.