Black Monday was a disaster. How long did it take to recover after previous crypto market crashes?

Stock and crypto markets crashed on Apr. 7, 2025. Media dubbed this day a Black Monday, similar to Black Thursday of 2020, Black Monday of 1987, and other “black” dates of the strongest market crashes. What does history teach us? How far are we from recovery?

As the Trump Administration waged the trade war and imposed tariffs on dozens of countries on a ‘Liberation Day’ (Apr. 2, 2025), markets began to shake, eventually plummeting on the Monday morning of April 7 as Trump didn’t show signs of changing his mind. Experts warn about the possible recession.

How bad was the downfall, aka Black Monday?

The crypto market downfall was pretty severe. On Apr. 7, Bitcoin lost around 7.7% in 24 hours, while other top cryptocurrencies saw harsher losses: Ether, Solana, and XRP lost around 20%, BNB saw around 9% decline, etc. The prices retraced by 3 to 5%. Around $600 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated within 24 hours.

The U.S. stock market closed with relatively small price drops. The U.S. markets opened down around 3%, but by the end of the day, the prices grew. At some point, the rumors about the potential 90-day pause on tariffs for all countries except for China helped to soften the downfall. Soon, the White House denied these claims, calling them fake news. The day closed with a slight decline of under 1%. Nasdaq saw the highest single-day amplitude since 2008.

In several countries, the stock market has gone through the biggest crash in years. The benchmark Heng Seng index in Hong Kong saw a 13% decline, which is the biggest single-day drop since 1997. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index closed at a better rate, 7.9%. Chinese markets closed at a better rate. The 30% tariffs against South Africa resulted in a 9% drop in the local market. Australian markets closed down 4.2%, which was the biggest fall since 2020. European markets opened down 5 to 9% but closed “only” 4.7% lower, the worst result since March 2022 when markets closed 4.9% down.

The effects of the market crash have been different from country to country. The market crash may continue as the main factors behind it (trade war and aggressive rhetoric towards Canada and Greenland) persist.

Was it the worst single-day downfall in the history of crypto?

The April 7 Bitcoin crash, by far, wasn’t the worst single-day price drop. There was only one major drop in the stock and crypto market in Bitcoin’s history. It was a COVID-19-related sell-off in the spring of 2020. 

Mar 12, 2020, saw a 50% drop, following giving COVID-19 a pandemic status by the World Health Organization. The world stock market was in a panic, and traders needed cash, so they were selling everything they had, including crypto. 

What’s important is that the other day, the BTC price began to rise. Twenty-four hours after the crash, it regained over half of its value, fully recovering by the end of April. The stimulus payments handed by the government in 2020 and 2021 played a crucial role in the recovery of the crypto market. According to the Harris Poll, nearly 10% of Americans used stimulus payments to invest in crypto. Such an inflow of retail investors helped the market to recover quickly.

On top of the 2020 Black Thursday, there were other days when Bitcoin prices experienced substantial downfalls. In April 2013, Mt Gox, an exchange responsible for 70% of crypto trading at that time, suspended its operations for 24 hours to cool down the market. The BTC price fell from $100 to $55. By the end of April, the price was already above $130.

An FTX exchange collapse in November 2022 caused a single-day 15% drop in the Bitcoin price when it dropped from $18.5k to $15.7k. It took a couple of months for the market to fully recover from the decline, when whales like Tim Draper and Michael Saylor made a series of BTC purchases.

What’s next?

Cointelegraph quotes the founder of MN Consultancy, Michael van de Poppe, as saying that Liberation Day is the climax of uncertainty. Soon, the big players will understand the changing conditions, and the market will start recovering. In Poppe’s opinion, the tariffs may stay in effect from 6 to 12 months.  

Several days in, the countries are still exchanging threats and demands. It seems that the uncertainty climax may take longer. In the past, Bitcoin has shown its ability to rebound during economic turmoil. Hopefully, this time, it won’t be something new.