ETF game involving bulls’? Cointelegraph’s unbelievable blunder on ‘Black Monday

ETF Bull-Led Game' Cointelegraph's Shocking Oversight on 'Black Monday

On October 16 at 21:21 Beijing time, the official account of the cryptocurrency media Cointelegraph suddenly tweeted: “BREAKING: SEC APPROVES ISHARES BITCOIN SPOT ETF” (Major News: SEC Approves BlackRock’s Bitcoin Spot ETF).

This sudden but unconfirmed news instantly ignited market sentiment, with Bitcoin skyrocketing and breaking through the key levels of $28,000, $29,000, and $30,000, reaching a high of $30,535.8 in just 10 minutes (data from OKX spot market prices).

However, the surge only lasted for 10 minutes. In the next 10 minutes, Bitcoin fell back to around $28,000, accompanied by a fierce secondary market that could be described as “longs and shorts killing each other.” Contract users experienced the ultimate experience of “price unchanged, positions gone” in just 20 minutes.

A $2,000 “slaughter of longs and shorts,” Cointelegraph’s shocking mistake?

• Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin Cash: Riding the Roller Coaster of Hope
• How Apple Can Embrace Bitcoin and Rewrite the Future
• Breaking News: SEC Loss Sparks Hope for Grayscale and the Crypto Industry

Digging deeper, the initial source of the news in the market was Cointelegraph’s tweet:

21:21, Cointelegraph tweeted, but at that time, the Bitcoin price in the secondary market did not react immediately, not even a slight increase.

It was not until two minutes later, at 21:23 when the market started to strengthen, that Bitcoin surged to a high of $30,535.8 within 8 minutes, with an increase of nearly 10%.

But then the market did not receive first-hand information from official channels such as SEC and BlackRock. Only Cointelegraph’s tweet, which claimed to be the source of the news, caused the initially boiling optimism to turn into doubt, and Bitcoin began to fall.

Subsequently, Fox journalist Eleanor Terrett tweeted that BlackRock had just confirmed to her that the application for “iShares Bitcoin Trust” was false news and that the application is still under review. Bloomberg ETF Senior Analyst Eric Balchunas also tweeted that it is almost certain to be “fake news.”

At this point, the tsunami-like blunder allegedly created by Cointelegraph began to recede. As of the time of writing, Cointelegraph has deleted the previous tweet claiming that “iShares Bitcoin Trust” was approved by the SEC, and Bitcoin has fallen back to around $28,000, clearly mocking the market.

The futures market undoubtedly suffered. According to Coinglass data, within 1 hour after Cointelegraph’s tweet, the entire network experienced liquidations worth approximately $104 million, with approximately $64.92 million in Bitcoin liquidations and $17.47 million in Ethereum liquidations.

From $28000 to $30000, then back to $28000, “price unchanged, position gone”.

Summary

Now in hindsight analysis, according to normal logic, the news of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF would involve a wide range of parties from the SEC’s confirmation to BlackRock’s announcement. It is impossible that there were no leaks beforehand.

However, before the tweet from Cointelegraph this time, there was no wind at all. Even 2 minutes after the tweet was published, the market had not reacted in time, which is enough to illustrate the problem.

As of the time of posting this article, Cointelegraph has tweeted that they are conducting an internal investigation into the fake news incident and will announce the investigation results within 3 hours. Regardless of the final conclusion of Cointelegraph’s investigation, whether it was a temporary worker/intern or a hacker “responsible”, its media credibility has also been squandered in this shocking mistake, almost completely depleted in just 20 minutes.

Under the “long and short double kill”, some people are left with plenty, while it is always the ordinary users who get hurt.

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