Bitcoin fell by 7.9% on April 13, Saturday, losing $5,308 from its previous close, Reuters reported.
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest and known cryptocurrency was down by 16.2% and Ether, the coin linked to the Ethereum blockchain network also fell by 9.18% to $2,930 on Saturday.
War leads to Bitcoin’s fall
Many experts have speculated about the fall in prices due to the Iran-Israel conflict and warnings regarding the missile attack. With Iran’s actions, the market was closed, and the crypto traders were the first ones to react to the event.
Coinglass data show about $1.5 billion of bullish crypto wagers via derivatives were liquidated on Friday and Saturday, one of the heaviest two-day liquidations in at least six months.
“More investors than usual might be choosing to express their market views through crypto,” David Lawant, head of research at FalconX.
JUST IN: Over $1.2 Billion in #Bitcoin longs have been liquidated over the last 24 hours, amid market decline, setting a new record. The previous record was $879M.
Today, more Bitcoin bulls have been liquidated than on any day in the last 15 years.
Another reason why buying up… pic.twitter.com/itnwb7rj1d
— WhaleWire (@WhaleWire) April 13, 2024
Not only Bitcoin, the stock market too
Post-attack, the stock markets were mostly in the red on Sunday. The Tel Aviv shares suffered a moderate decline after Iran’s attack.
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s benchmark TA-125 index slipped 0.7% and the TA-35 index of blue-chip companies fell 0.6% in early afternoon trading.
The TA-90 index, which tracks the shares with the highest market capitalization not included in the TA-35 index, dropped 0.9%, and the TA-Insurance & Financial Services index was down 1.6%.
Bitcoin Halving ahead
Crypto speculators are awaiting the “bitcoin halving” that will reduce the supply of Bitcoin thus stabilizing prices.
The Bitcoin halving is expected around April 20th. The Bitcoin halving event occurs every four years. The estimated countdown is based on Bitcoin’s average block generation time of 10 minutes, setting a potential date of April 20 at around 9 a.m. UTC.
Once a halving event occurs, miners receive 50% fewer bitcoins as a subsidy reward for every block of transactions they mine and add to the blockchain. There have been three halving events reducing block subsidy from 50 BTC to 25 BTC in 2012, 12.5 BTC in 2016 and 6.25 on May 11, 2020.
This reduction in fees to the miners for every block they mine reduces the supply of bitcoins, thus maintaining the idea of Bitcoin as digital gold whose finite supply helps define its value.
Is it Bitcoin Manipulation?
Many experts have highlighted that there have been activities in the market which appear strange.
John Griffin, a professor of finance at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business is one such expert who has spent time investigating the matter and pointing out the problems. Griffin and Amin Shams, a doctoral candidate at McCombs coauthored a groundbreaking study together which shows how single-handedly, an unidentified Bitcoin “whale” drove the token prices up in late 2017 and early 2018.
Signs of Manipulation
The leading sign is the steady performance of Bitcoin, even reaching a five-month high following the FTX Debacle which was likely to send the token reeling. The day before the reports, Bitcoin dropped from $21,000 to %15,900, a 25% fall. After the drop, for 62 days there was normal trading expected for one day where the highs and lows show a difference of 10%.
Tether involved in manipulation?
The pair saw a strong pattern that whenever bitcoin had its biggest spikes: prices dropped and a lot of tethers were printed.
The author focused on 1% of all intervals where the largest combination of tether issuance took place. In this case, whenever Bitcoin was under pressure, it appeared that some buyers rode in to buy the tokens and raised the prices quickly. The Unidentified buyer was using tether to do this manipulation.
“The issuing of Tether without backing inflated the amount of currency chasing the same supply of Bitcoin,” Griffin told Fortune. “The Tether created from thin air was inflating the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.”
Changing expert opinions
Because of such allegations of manipulation, many experts have talked about how tether was the one controlling prices and the prices will change in spite of the real market situation.
People criticized these actions and concluded that changes in prices due to the Iran-Israel war don’t matter as tether can print more money to inflate or deflate the market.
Bitcoin’s price is almost entirely dependant on how much Tether is printed out of thin air, and injected into shady unregulated exchanges.
Few understand the true value of Bitcoin, which is actually far from than even $3,000. When this goes bust, it will be the greatest loss of… pic.twitter.com/2bYcnZbJGC
— WhaleWire (@WhaleWire) April 14, 2024
