This week something surprising happened: $1 billion was liquidated in a matter of hours. And all because the U.S. Producer Price Index, PPI, rose a little more than expected. No, you haven't confused it. It wasn't an explosion at a mining farm, nor the banning of bitcoin in some state, nor even a tweet from Elon Musk. A number simply came out in the report, and traders lost their minds.
Bitcoin even fell below $112,000, although not long ago we were told that it “wouldn’t go below a hundred thousand.” Sure, of course. They also told us that coffee wouldn’t increase in price if wages at Starbucks went up.
And so, while bitcoin was trying to remember who it is - a future asset or simply a modern analog of gold, Ethereum ETFs received a sudden gift in the form of $729 million in inflows. Institutions say: “Oh, panic? Great, we buy!”
Why is this important? Because cryptocurrency, which once prided itself on being independent of the system, now reacts to macroeconomic news faster than the bond market. We live in a world where bitcoin fears inflation, and Ethereum rejoices when everyone is nervous.
And here is the main question:
Is this the end of the cryptocurrency romance or the beginning of a new game?
If you ask the old bitcoiners, they will say: “Just hodl.” If you ask the traders, they will say: “Place stop loss and pray.” Or the speculators: “Buy in panic and sell in euphoria, as every good speculator has done in the last 300 years.”
And meanwhile: the market is not about technology, it's not about freedom, it's not about blockchain. The market is a theater. And the tickets for the best seats are the most expensive. Especially when behind the scenes is the PPI.