On Sunday, when most are resting, the crypto markets experienced a sudden and painful crash. The reason? One major player, or "whale," dumped 24,000 BTC in one go, shaking the market and casting doubt on Bitcoin's bullish trend.
The sale that shook the market
It all started with a series of transactions, resulting in the whale selling bitcoins worth over $2.7 billion. This led to an instant drop in the price of BTC from $115,000 to $111,000. This decline also affected Ethereum (ETH), which had just reached a new all-time high of $4,953.73. It too could not withstand it and lost 7.75% of its value, once again falling short of the coveted $5,000.
Thin trading volumes on weekends only worsened the situation, and angry comments quickly followed. Crypto analyst Scott Melker, known as 'The Wolf of All Streets,' sarcastically asked on X how 'mentally deficient' one must be to sell 24,000 BTC on the market on a Sunday.
Conspiracy theories and concentration of power
The suspicions are compounded by the fact that this whale still holds over 152,000 BTC worth $17 billion. This has led traders to speculate:
Is the whale moving to ETH? Some believe that it is selling Bitcoin to buy Ethereum, hoping for higher returns, as institutional investors do.
Is something wrong? Others suggest that the whale had a very serious reason for such an urgent sale on a weekend.
Many were outraged that just one transaction worth 1/1000 of the total market capitalization could crash the price by 5%. This painful reminder highlights how shallow the crypto market still is and how heavily it is influenced by individual players. As one user wrote, "a single entity can shift billions with one button."
AI and 'crypto winter'
When X's chatbot Grok analyzed what would happen if this whale sold all of its remaining 152,000 BTC, it estimated a potential drop in the price of Bitcoin to $79,000 – $90,000. This would already mark a full bear market, not to mention the panic sell-offs that could follow.
Of course, it is unfair to blame a single whale for everything. The situation was exacerbated by $271 million in liquidations when leveraged traders' positions were wiped out.
Moreover, this is not the only "spoonful of tar" in the crypto barrel. The Financial Times warned about companies accumulating bitcoins. Many of them are taking huge loans to buy BTC, following the example of Michael Saylor. According to journalist Patrick Jenkins, this could end badly: "As long as the bull run continues, these companies — resembling a financial pyramid within a financial pyramid — may thrive. But when 'crypto winter' arrives, as it did in 2018 and 2022, investors will face a double dose of suffering."
