A Spotty Morning for BTC Markets
Crypto started off the week with a bang on Monday when some fake news shared by a crypto media outlet sent the markets into a frenzy.
Here’s what happened:
A user in a crypto Telegram channel shared the message “BREAKING: SEC APPROVES BITCOIN SPOT ETF.” Other users started clamouring
for a source, but no further context was added here.
Some 40 minutes after that Telegram message was shared (the message was later deleted along with the account that had shared it), the crypto news outlet Cointelegraph ran with the non-story. Note the identical language:
The problem? The SEC hasn’t actually approved any spot Bitcoin ETFs yet, so FAKE NEWS
Of course, the initial bullish reaction here comes as no surprise since there is huge anticipation of the first spot of Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. now that the SEC is considering multiple applications.
When the first such ETF is actually approved, we’ll likely see BTC and the other majors like ETH immediately rocket up, just like we saw today. The market seems to have already begun further pricing this in as the initial selloff has already softened with BTC up over 5% today.
Why the buildup? More mainstream adoption, institutional investment, better liquidity, etc.
The person who planted this fake “SEC approves spot Bitcoin ETF” story undoubtedly knew all of this! They knew how the market would react. And presumably, they made some sort of direct bet to capitalize on the chaos. Accordingly, this case likely has “market manipulation” written all over it. We don’t know the specifics yet
Nevertheless I am proud of the speculatooors.
The episode has drawn a lot of attention to the need for better verification of news sources in crypto. This kind of fumble doesn’t help crypto. If there’s a silver lining here, though, we did just get a preview of how the market will react once a spot Bitcoin ETF does get approved, i.e., impressively exuberant. SO YOU CAN BUILD A POSITION SLOWLY
Until next time guys.
