Tomorrow is again the anniversary of 519. As an experienced investor who went through that storm, I still occasionally recall the scenes from back then. The 519 crypto incident is indeed a textbook market lesson; the feeling of huge swings, I remember clearly to this day.

Looking back, the trigger was actually very simple—Elon Musk’s tweet. In early 2021, when he bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin for Tesla, the whole market was cheering, but in mid-May he suddenly changed his tone, first announcing to stop accepting Bitcoin payments, citing environmental concerns, then hinting at possibly selling, which instantly shattered market confidence. Bitcoin plummeted from $57,000 to $46,000, and later even directly dropped to around $30,000.

But Musk’s comments were only surface-level; the deeper issues were even more profound. The four months of bull market before that were just too crazy. Bitcoin surged from $30,000 at the start of the year to $64,000, more than doubling. Ethereum, Dogecoin, and others doubled or tripled multiple times. At that time, the market was full of new retail investors, buying whatever they saw, completely ignoring fundamentals—purely driven by social media sentiment. Plus, regulatory signals from China also started to appear, and that’s how the 519 crypto incident was triggered.

The craziest part was on the morning of May 19, when the market immediately entered panic mode. Ethereum dropped from $3,300 to $1,900, a decline of over 40%. Other smaller coins fared even worse, some halved in value. Exchanges were crashing everywhere; many couldn’t close their positions, only watching their assets shrink. The amount and number of liquidations hit record highs that day, with panic indexes soaring and greed indexes plunging to the bottom.

Interestingly, the market recovered very quickly. By the afternoon of May 19, some institutions and big players started to buy the dip, and Bitcoin rebounded to around $40,000. Ethereum also returned to about $2,800. That’s the most typical feature of the 519 crypto incident—sharp drops and sharp rises, with extreme shifts in sentiment.

Looking at the scene back then now, I feel some nostalgia. The market’s volatility was indeed greater then, with opportunities and risks coexisting. Now Bitcoin is over $77,000, and Ethereum is around $2,130. The market structure has completely changed. Wall Street has entered, institutional investors are more numerous, and the market is more tightly controlled. It’s really hard to see those big swings anymore. The 519 crypto incident has become history, but the lessons it left remain—market sentiment amplifies everything, bubbles will eventually burst, and panic and greed always cycle back and forth. Watching various assets on Gate now, I still occasionally recall the chaos of that year. That feeling is truly unforgettable.