Flash crash! Whales sink price of Bitcoin

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Here we go again. Bitcoin (and just about everything else) crashed 15% during a 7 minute period when a whale or whales unloaded their BTC. At around 5:30PM PST, Coinbase went down around 5:30PM as well, but service was restored within the hour.

The top 10 coins by market cap, as usual, saw similar declines, with Ethereum plummeting from $210 to $191.

Apparently, whales started liquidating their BTC positions in $2 million chunks just as the clock struck 5 PM in California. Bitcoin dropped from $9561 to $8570 in just under 30 minutes, before perking up to $8770, where it appeared to level off as of this writing.

$2,685,542 worth of #bitcoin SHORTED @ $8,599.47 [10/05/20 00:56:58]

Exchange: BitMEX | Pair: $XBTUSD
💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰

Wait for the bounce, then short the corn

— WhaleTrades 🐳 (@WhaleTrades) May 10, 2020

The crash was met with predictable reactions all the way around. New York University Economics professor Nouriel Roubini did his usual Dr. Doom thing "Massive pump & dump, spoofing, front running, wash trading! Total scam!" And CNBC Crypto Trader host Ran Neuner wryly tweeted, "Is it the end of Crypto again?"

Expect more thrills and chills and outlandish whalish behavior as we head into Bitcoin's halving next week.

Is it the end of Crypto again?

— Ran NeuNer (@cryptomanran) May 10, 2020

Bitcoin crashes by 15% in 7 minutes on NO news: a rigged, totally manipulated, whales-controlled market where most transactions (90%) volumes are false as exchanges pretend to have liquidity they don't have. Massive pump & dump, spoofing, front running, wash trading! Total Scam!

— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) May 10, 2020

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