January is coming to an end, and the market has undergone a reality check for the year 2026. After eight weeks of sideways fluctuations, a sudden 7% drop reversed market sentiment, leading to a loss of tens of billions of dollars in TOTAL market capitalization and pushing the market back into risk-off sentiment.
Specifically, in less than 48 hours, the cryptocurrency market evaporated about 200 billion dollars, triggering the largest liquidation wave of 2026 so far, totaling approximately 1.8 billion dollars, of which 95% of the liquidations came from long positions.
However, it was not just the cryptocurrency market that was hit hard. The entire U.S. market was affected, with the market capitalization of metals, cryptocurrencies, and stock markets evaporating over 5 trillion dollars, which analysts referred to as a once-in-a-decade upheaval.