Bitcoin drops freely for 35 minutes: $132 million long positions wiped out as 'strange' recurrence occurs

Pattern ‘10 a.m. EST’ repetition raises suspicion

On Friday morning (12/12), Bitcoin experienced a sudden drop as the US market just opened. According to analyst Bull Theory, this phenomenon is not the first— and the repeated pattern is causing warning signals within the trading community.

Specifically, after US trading hours began at 10 a.m. EST, the leading cryptocurrency lost $2,000 in less than half an hour—dropping from $92,473 to $89,510 in 35 minutes. This damage led to concentrated liquidations: over $132 million long positions were forced to close within 60 minutes, wiping out approximately $40 billion from the total market capitalization.

Bull Theory calls this the “10 a.m. EST manipulation”—a pattern identified from Q2 and Q3 of this year, where BTC consistently drops sharply at US market open, then gradually recovers in subsequent hours.

Who is behind this mechanism?

According to analysis, the main suspect is Jane Street—one of the largest high-frequency trading (HFT) firms globally. Notably, Jane Street currently holds about $2.5 billion in BlackRock’s IBIT (Bitcoin Spot ETF), ranking fifth among their largest positions.

With rapid execution speeds and enormous liquidity, HFT firms like this can move markets within minutes—especially when long positions have been heavily built up and are ready for liquidation.

“This pattern is too consistent to ignore,” emphasizes Bull Theory. “A sharp decline within an hour of market open, followed by a slow recovery—this is classic high-frequency trading execution.”

Price analysis in the context of volatility

As of now, Bitcoin is trading around $90.68K, gradually recovering after the dip. In the first 35 minutes of this event, the cryptocurrency lost 2.31%, from pre-open price to the daily low, with Bitcoin experiencing a 3.2% loss, roughly $3,000 in value.

Before the instability, Bitcoin showed positive signs as the US Congress pushed the SEC to allow cryptocurrencies to be integrated into 401(k) plans. At that time, BTC surpassed $92,000, creating market optimism.

Ethereum also followed this trend, maintaining around $3.11K with a 24h volatility of -0.17%. However, withdrawal flows from ETH ETFs have been observed, although they were unsuccessful when the “10 a.m. EST manipulation” pattern occurred.

Trader warning

Although proving market manipulation is very difficult legally, this repeated pattern is becoming a warning signal for those holding long positions, especially margin traders.

The simple reason: long positions can become targets for large traders, who use these liquidations as fuel to push longs and accumulate at lower prices—thus gaining better entry points than average investors.

This phenomenon reminds us that in the crypto market, sudden volatility is not always due to natural demand, but can be the result of carefully calculated trading strategies by large organizations.