A market maker quoting a two-sided price is taking on inventory risk. The spread is compensation for that risk, so when risk rises the spread widens. Nothing about that is unfair — it is the price of a service being repriced.
The consequence is unfortunate anyway: costs peak precisely when you most want to transact.
Three things that widen a spread
Volatility. Higher expected movement means more inventory risk between quoting and hedging.
Uncertainty about fair value. Around a news event, a maker does not know where the price should be, so they quote defensively or step away.
Thin conditions. Weekends and holidays, when fewer participants are quoting — the situation in weekend gamma.
All three cluster together. The violent weekend move is the widest-spread environment a crypto trader routinely meets.
Why it compounds with everything else
The same conditions that widen spreads also thin order book depth and trigger liquidations. So impact rises at the same time as the spread, while forced sellers arrive.
Each is a modest effect in isolation. Together they are why a 5% move can cost far more than 5% to trade through.
What you can actually do
Size positions on the assumption that the exit costs multiples of what the entry did — the asymmetry in the round trip. Prefer resting orders where the position allows waiting. And avoid needing to trade at the worst moment, which mostly means deciding the exit before entering rather than discovering it under pressure.
None of that eliminates the cost. It moves the decision to a moment when you were not paying a premium to make it.