Yesterday, I saw a wave of pretty strong cryptocurrency crashes, with Bitcoin briefly dropping below $81,000, and Ethereum falling to around $2,500. In just 30 minutes, nearly $380 million in longs were liquidated, which is indeed a significant scale.

I only later understood what happened—there was a well-known whale who started massively liquidating during the weekend when liquidity was low. This guy had built over $700 million in long positions over the past month, and today he directly dumped more than $65 million worth of Ethereum. This immediately triggered algorithmic trading following the trend, and the liquidation wave began.

Interestingly, this whale's background is also quite special—it's said to be the person who made $200 million shorting before the stock market crash in October. So now everyone in the market is guessing whether he’s truly bearish and trying to buy back at lower prices after closing his position, or if he has some inside information. That’s also why recent cryptocurrency markets are so easily influenced by big players.