$500M liquidated overnight. When did we normalize financial carnage?

Woke up this morning, opened crypto Twitter — $500M+ liquidations overnight.

My reaction? “Oh. Another Tuesday.”
And that scared me more than the number itself.

Back in October, that $19B liquidation day when BTC nuked from $126k felt apocalyptic. People were genuinely shaken. Now we see $300–500M liquidation events almost weekly and the timeline just… moves on.

Here's what bothers me: I've been liquidated twice this year. Not because my thesis was wrong or I overleveraged like an idiot. Both times, the exchange went "under maintenance" during the dump.

First time: Binance, March. BTC drops 12% in 8 minutes. I try to close my position → "Error: system overload." Try mobile app → same thing. Try to add margin → "Deposits temporarily disabled." Position liquidated at literally the worst tick. 23 minutes later, everything works fine.

Second time: Different CEX, similar story. Price crashes, platform freezes, liquidation goes through, platform unfreezes. $4.7k gone.

I'm not even mad anymore. I'm just numb to it. And that's the problem.

We've all collectively decided that:
Exchanges going down during volatility = normal
$500M erased in a few hours = just another day
Getting liquidated due to "technical issues" = part of the game

When did this become acceptable?

I've been looking at non-custodial perps (Phantom, Trust Wallet, etc.) because at least if I get rekt, it's my own fault and not because some server conveniently crashed. Found Atomic Wallet's version lets you deposit via TRX-USDT – $0.50 fees instead of $15 on Ethereum. Small thing, but when you're paranoid about leaving funds on CEXs, it matters.

But here's my actual question:
If you've been liquidated multiple times this year, why are you still trading perps?

I'm genuinely asking. Not judging, I'm still here too, somehow. But what's the thesis? Are we making money long-term, or just paying for the dopamine hit of 10x leverage while pretending it's "strategy"?

Because from where I'm sitting, perps feel less like trading and more like betting against:
Liquidation cascades you can't predict
Stop-loss hunting algorithms
Exchange outages that always happen during dumps (funny how that works)

Be honest with yourself: if leverage trading disappeared tomorrow, would you miss the strategy – or just the rush?

I don't have the answer. Maybe I'm being dramatic. Maybe this is just what trading looks like now and I need to adapt or leave.
But I can't shake the feeling that we've all normalized something deeply broken.