NEW YORK (Reuters) -Following the largest crypto liquidation in history last Friday, options market investors are bracing for more volatility and further declines in bitcoin and ether, aggressively positioning in trades that offer protection against another potential freefall.

Market participants said the crypto sector on Friday saw more than $19 billion in liquidations across leveraged positions as panic selling and low liquidity triggered sharp swings. The plunge came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced late on Friday a 100% tariff on Chinese imports and threatened export controls on critical software. 

Crypto analysts said this was the largest wipeout in a 24-hour period in the market's history, nine times larger than the February 2025 crash and 19 times bigger than the March 2020 meltdown and the FTX collapse in November 2022.

Bitcoin fell as low as $104,782.88 during the October 10-11 period, down more than 14% from its high of $122,574.46 on Friday. It was last up 0.6% at $115,718.13. The world's largest cryptocurrency hit a record high above $126,000 on October 6.

Ether, the second biggest digital currency, dropped 12.2% to a low of $3,436.29 on Friday. It last changed hands at $4,254, up 2.4% on the day. 

Altcoins took an even bigger hit as HYPE (-54%), DOGE (-62%), and AVAX (-70%) all experienced steep drawdowns before recovering to post more modest losses.

Trump over the weekend softened his rhetoric on China, however, noting that "it will all be fine" and the U.S. did not want to "hurt" China. That helped the crypto recovery. China on Sunday blamed the U.S. for the escalation, but did not roll out further countermeasures.

"Last Friday, you saw volatility just jump across the board, not only for short-dated, but also for long-dated maturities. The sentiment around short-dated volatility is that more people are worried about downward turns," said Sean Dawson, head of research at Derive.xyz in Canberra.

Data from Derive.xyz, a crypto options trading platform, showed heavy "put" buying from traders in bitcoin and ether, which suggested hedging against potential downside risks.

In bitcoin, there were hefty purchases of puts conferring the right to sell bitcoin at strike prices of $115,000 and $95,000 for the October 31 expiry, according to Dawson. There was also a sharp reversal from call buying to call selling at the $125,000 strike for the October 17 expiry, suggesting a bearish short-term view. 

Calls in the options market reflect expectations that the price will increase.

For ether, Nick Forster, Derive.xyz co-founder, said traders focused on the $4,000 strike for the October 31 expiry and $3,600 strike for the October 17 expiry. He also noted substantial buying of $2,600 puts for the December 26 expiry. Those strikes, he said, are indicative of growing bearish sentiment through year-end.

Despite the meltdown, Willy Woo, a leading onchain crypto analyst with more than a million on X, noted that bitcoin investor flows have been holding up well and may be the reason it fared better than expected against a sharp decline in stocks.

In contrast, Woo said he saw a large drop in ether flows while Solana continued a decline. He believes that capital in altcoins is likely rotating into bitcoin rather than leaving the system.

Altcoins, also known as alternative coins, refer to cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, which are often treated as high-risk, high-reward investments. Some altcoins deliver massive returns, but many fail or lose liquidity.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is widely viewed as a "blue-chip" crypto asset, widely-held by institutions.

"The good news is that this (crash) has cleaned out the excessive leverage and reset the risk in the market, for now," said Nic Puckrin, crypto analyst and co-founder of The Coin Bureau. 

"However, bitcoin now faces another uphill battle to break past key resistance levels that will allow it to reach a meaningful new all-time high this year."

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