What can go wrong

Digital asset markets trade without pause, so a move that equities would spread across sessions and halts can complete in minutes with nothing interrupting it.

Evidence: Compare depth and spread during weekend and overnight hours against weekday peaks on the same venue, and look at the largest observed short-interval ranges rather than at daily candles. Cross-venue price divergence during past stress windows is observable and…

Assets that behave differently in calm markets tend to move together in stress, so apparent variety within digital assets narrows exactly when it matters.

Evidence: Measure rolling correlations across regimes rather than reading a single long-run average, and look specifically at correlation during the largest historical drawdowns. Map shared infrastructure: overlapping market makers, shared lenders, shared collateral,…

Most trading, price discovery, and often custody for an asset sit at one or two venues, so a venue's problem immediately becomes the asset's problem.

Evidence: Look at volume share by venue after filtering, at which venues feed the relevant index or oracle, and at whether the asset trades meaningfully in more than one regulatory jurisdiction. On-chain balances at exchange-labeled addresses show how much supply is…

A small tradable share of supply sets the reference price for a much larger total, and whoever controls the remainder can shape that price.

Evidence: Examine holder concentration, excluding known exchange and contract addresses, and count how much supply sits in vesting contracts, treasury addresses, and market-maker wallets. Compare fully diluted valuation against market capitalization, and read the terms…

Leveraged positions are force-closed automatically, and the resulting market orders trigger further force-closures in a self-reinforcing sequence.

Evidence: Compare open interest against spot order-book depth, since the ratio indicates how much forced flow a market may have to absorb. Funding rates at persistent extremes indicate crowded positioning, and aggregate liquidation prints show what actually cleared.…

A large market capitalization can rest on a small amount of genuine order-book depth, so modest selling moves the price much further than the headline implies.

Evidence: Measure bid and ask depth within one and two percent of the mid price on the venues that actually matter, and estimate realized slippage for a defined order size rather than reading a volume number. Compare market capitalization against genuine daily volume,…

Reported trading volume can include trades where the same party stands on both sides, making an asset or a venue look more liquid than it is.

Evidence: Cross-check volume against order-book depth and against settlement observed on-chain, since real flow generally leaves traces in deposits, withdrawals, and transfers. Examine trade size distributions for unnatural regularity, spreads that are implausibly…