According to CryptoCompare, on June 3, at around 23:50 UTC, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) started plunging against the U.S. dollar. Just 75 minutes later, the Bitcoin price broke through the $7,800 support level to reach an intraday low of $7,783.
Here is the 24-hour BTC-USD price chart:
Why the Sudden 8% Price Drop?
On social media platforms, among crypto traders, the most popular explanation (not based on technical analysis) for this sudden 8% drop in the price of Bitcoin seems to be the one offered by Reddit user “makoveli”, who believes that this BTC dump was the result of price manipulation by a Bitcoin whale.
Here is his explanation for what happened:
- “About 20-30 mins before the dump, a whale moved 25k BTC (worth $215M) to Coinbase”
- “About an hour after the dump, a whale moved 14k BTC (worth $112M) from Coinbase to another wallet”
- “40 mins after that, a whale moved 11k BTC (worth $88M) from Coinbase to another wallet”
- “15 mins after that, a whale moved 10M USDT from one wallet to another”
To him, it is clear that this Bitcoin whale “dumped 25k BTC for $215M” and “bought it back shortly after for $200M”, which means that this person “pocketed $15M and walked away with the same amount of BTC as they started with.”
Effect on the Price of the Altcoins
As usual, Bitcoin’s price crash managed to drag down the prices of most major altcoins, with the prices of most top 20 (by market cap) cryptoassets down against USD by at least 5% in the past 24-hour period.
Here is how some of the most popular cryptocurrencies have been affected:
- Ether (ETH): $246.88 (-6.22%)
- XRP: $0.412 (-7.05%)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH): $396.38 (-7.61%)
- Litecoin (LTC): $103.44 (-7.76%)
- EOS: $6.67 (-9.14%)
- Binance Coin (BNB): $29.67 (-6.43%)
Reactions From the Crypto Traders on Twitter
People have asked if that was short term sell off and the price is heading back up
Due to the amount of volume, it's more likely price has short term relief that can last hours or days before another push down to retest support
Price action isn't a straight line 🙂 pic.twitter.com/FiTSsNO7SF
— Josh Rager 📈 (@Josh_Rager) June 4, 2019
Still using the D3 levels as my trusty guide for this market.
Broken resistance failing to flip to support is usually a sign of a (short-term) top.
Needs to reclaim $8200s or test one of the outlined support levels for me to buy. Not interested in no man's land entries. pic.twitter.com/xtuMRp7ty9
— Cred (@CryptoCred) June 4, 2019
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