Do you remember the 519 incident in 2021? That crash, often called the black swan of the crypto world, is probably an eternal shadow for many old-school investors. I was there at the time, watching my assets evaporate within a few hours. The psychological impact was truly indescribable.

Looking back, the 519 event didn't happen suddenly; it was the result of multiple factors stacking up. The most immediate trigger was Elon Musk's series of Twitter statements. This guy was previously a huge supporter of crypto, Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, and he announced that Tesla would accept BTC payments. He also frequently hyped Dogecoin on Twitter. But in mid-May, he suddenly did a 180, first announcing he would stop accepting Bitcoin payments citing environmental concerns, then hinting at possibly selling his Bitcoin holdings. This series of actions directly triggered market panic.

But Musk was only the surface reason. The deeper issue was that the market itself had already accumulated a massive bubble. From the beginning of the year to April, Bitcoin surged from $30,000 to $64,000, an increase of over 100%. Even more exaggerated were the smaller altcoins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, which soared by thousands of times without any fundamentals support—purely driven by social media hype and retail FOMO. Plus, at that time, China’s three major associations issued regulatory signals, and Inner Mongolia began tightening mining restrictions. These policy messages were interpreted by the market as crackdowns, further fueling panic.

The true trigger of the 519 event was on May 19. Starting from early morning, the market entered a free-fall. Bitcoin plummeted from $43,000 to $30,000, a 30% drop. Ethereum fared even worse, falling from $3,300 to $1,900, a 42% decline. Other coins dropped over 30%, some even over 50%. Exchanges were all bogged down, many couldn’t close their positions, only watching their assets shrink. The fear index soared to a historic high of 0.8, while the greed index dropped to 10—fear completely dominated the market.

Interestingly, the market quickly entered a rebound phase. Starting in the afternoon of May 19, some institutions and big players began to buy the dip. Bitcoin rebounded back to $40,000, and Ethereum recovered to $2,800. By May 20, market sentiment gradually stabilized, and the market entered a correction period.

Looking back at the 519 event now, it truly marked the end of an era. Back then, the market was entirely driven by retail investors, highly emotional. A single tweet could wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars in market value. Over the years, with Wall Street institutions flooding in, the market has been tightly controlled, and those wild, exhilarating swings are no longer visible. Some say this is a sign of maturity, but I actually miss that pure, crazy volatility.