A fake news, a bullish market illusion that led to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses

The Illusion of a Bullish Market How Fake News Caused a Devastating Loss of Hundreds of Millions in Capital

“The source of the fake news about the approval of the ETF is it Cointelegraph or Benzinga, Reuters?”

Original author: Loopy

Just now, BTC completed the shortest “bull-bear transition” in history.

• Feature Article Travel Diary of Bitcoin Nation El Salvador
• Busting the Bubble Unveiling the Truth behind Fake Spot Bitcoin ETF News
• Bitcoin Price Goes on a Roller Coaster Ride after Fake BlackRock ETF Announcement $100 Million Liquidated!

This explosive rise and sharp fall can be seen clearly on a 1-minute candlestick chart. In just a few minutes, BTC quickly rose with multiple bullish candles, and the upward trend became more and more intense. According to OKX, the highest price for BTC was $30,535.

(The horizontal axis of the chart is in GMT+7 timezone)

In just 10 minutes, BTC went from less than $28,000 to quickly break through the $30,000 mark, with a 10-minute gain of up to 8.9%.

But after reaching the peak, the price quickly plummeted. The bull-bear transition happened in the blink of an eye.

(The market fluctuated so quickly that even the character “門” cannot be formed)

All of this was triggered by Cointelegraph’s publication of a fake news on X platform (formerly Twitter).

What happened during the one hour of “fake news”?

Around 9:30 PM, Beijing time, on October 16, Cointelegraph’s news about “Bitcoin ETF approved” quickly spread throughout the market.

(“SEC approves BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Spot ETF”)

After that, Bitcoin immediately began to rise rapidly. The entire market quickly entered a frenzy of bullish sentiment.

However, the direction of the market seemed less optimistic. As mentioned earlier, such a heavy positive news only sustained the upward trend for a few minutes, and then the trend quickly reversed, leaving people confused about the market outlook. Just like every “misunderstanding” event, false information cannot support a sustainable market trend.

A few minutes later, people finally discovered that things were changing: Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart stated on X platform that Cointelegraph’s news about the “SEC approved BTC ETF” is suspected to be fake news. Except for Cointelegraph, there is no publicly available second source to corroborate Cointelegraph’s claim.

The Odaily Planet Daily also updated this development in real time.

Odaily Planet Daily verified on iShares official website and social media, and no relevant news has been released.

About 6 minutes after the questioning began, definitive information finally appeared.

Fox reporter Eleanor Terrett stated on social media that BlackRock has just confirmed to her that Cointelegraph’s exclusive news “US SEC approves BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Spot ETF” is false, and their application is still under review.

So far, the fastest bull and bear conversion in the history of Bitcoin is officially completed, starting from less than $28,000, rising more than $2,000 in ten minutes, and then immediately falling back to its original position. The wallets of contract users are probably the most affected.

Coinglass data shows that during the volatile one-hour period, a total of $105 million was liquidated, with $66.49 million in BTC liquidation, $17.40 million in ETH liquidation, $32.08 million in long positions liquidation, and $73.11 million in short positions liquidation.

What did Cointelegraph do?

As a well-known veteran media outlet, many traders have deep faith in the news released by Cointelegraph. The last confirmation as fake news has made many people exclaim, “Could it be an intern’s mistake?”

(Netizens speculatively joking about its motives)

After this news was debunked, Cointelegraph, after about 20 minutes of the incident (close to 22:00), re-posted a tweet that was almost identical, with the addition of only one word – “REPORTEDLY”.

“Reportedly, the SEC approves iShares Bitcoin Spot ETF.”

The second tweet lasted only a few minutes, and both ETF-related tweets have been deleted. In addition, Cointelegraph only posted fake news on X platform and did not publish it on its own website and other channels.

Where did the fake news come from?

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas found that the news of the Bitcoin Spot ETF also appeared on the Benzinga terminal.

Benzinga is a news company that focuses on financial breaking news. Its product positioning is highly similar to Bloomberg Terminal and competes with it. Its content sources cover major mainstream financial media and aggregate a large amount of third-party news.

Regarding the “ETF incident” this time, the information displayed on the Benzinga terminal shows that the source of this news is Reuters.

However, so far, both Benzinga and Reuters have not provided further explanations for this event. We still do not know if the source of this news is Benzinga, Reuters, or Cointelegraph. Whether someone is manipulating the market.

In the latest news, Cointelegraph official stated that they apologize for the dissemination of incorrect information regarding “BlackRock’s Bitcoin Spot ETF approval”. The team is currently conducting an internal investigation, which will be concluded within 3 hours, and the investigation results will be shared with the public afterwards.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!