Exchanges and institutions take turns selling Bitcoin, panic sentiment causes Bitcoin to crash below 66,000, eating industry’s bread, smashing industry’s pot

Institutions collectively loosen, Bitcoin plummets! The real dump isn’t chips, but market expectations
Recently, the crypto market has experienced a fierce震荡, with Bitcoin’s price rapidly falling below the $66,000 mark, and panic spreading quickly. Countless retail investors are eager to find the cause of the plunge, but the answer lies in the abnormal operations of two top-tier institutions: institutions that have always坚持持仓, regarded as the “diamond hands benchmark” in the crypto circle, are breaking their faith one after another, starting to sell coins, causing the entire crypto community to stir.
Prior to this, MicroStrategy broke its extreme坚持“永不售卖BTC” stance, modestly reducing Bitcoin holdings, which caused the first signs of情绪松动 in the market. The real trigger for this round of panic was the first sale operation by stablecoin giant Tether. As the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin USDT, Tether is a cornerstone institution in the crypto industry, a symbol of market stability for years, and has never engaged in selling Bitcoin reserves.
According to on-chain data, Tether’s official strategic reserve wallet recently transferred 204.3 BTC to exchanges, completing a cash-out operation, amounting to about $14.36 million. From a purely quantity perspective, over two hundred Bitcoins are insignificant in the vast market, and lack the power to crash the market or cause a collapse. However, once this news was exposed, it instantly flooded the entire crypto space, becoming the core trigger for Bitcoin’s sharp drop.
Many retail investors are puzzled: just a few hundred tokens sold, why can it trigger a market-wide crash? To understand the market, first understand the weight of this Tether wallet.
This is not an ordinary institutional holding address, but Tether’s core strategic reserve account. As of now, this address holds a total of 96,936 BTC, worth about $6.7 billion, ranking as the fifth-largest Bitcoin holding address globally, a true super main force chip pool.
This massive Bitcoin holding is not a short-term speculative position. Since 2023, Tether has strictly adhered to its corporate promise, continuously investing 15% of its profits into Bitcoin, maintaining long-term dollar-cost averaging and steadfast holdings, never wavering. On-chain cost basis calculations show its overall average purchase price is only around $51,312, and as of this market point, its unrealized profit exceeds $1.7 billion, with extremely strong confidence in its holdings.
Because of this, Tether, like MicroStrategy, is recognized as the ultimate diamond hand in the crypto circle. In the minds of retail and small to medium institutions, these top-tier institutions are the most solid backing for Bitcoin’s bull market, core forces that will never sell their chips or betray the market. Their holding faith supports long-term market optimism.
This also explains why small sales can trigger huge震荡. There is an eternal core rule in the crypto market: market crashes are never caused by genuine selling pressure, but by collapsing expectations.
Previously, all market participants assumed that top-tier institutions would lock their holdings forever and support the market. But now, faith benchmarks are breaking: MicroStrategy, which never sells, chooses to reduce holdings; Tether, which never trades its reserves, cashes out for the first time. The market’s panic is never about “selling 204 BTC this time,” but about endless worries: “Today I can sell two hundred, but tomorrow will I sell two thousand? Will there be a large-scale liquidation the day after tomorrow?”
This uncertainty is the most feared thing in capital markets. Retail panic selling, quantitative funds dumping with the trend, small and medium institutions fleeing for risk aversion—layer upon layer, culminating in a stampede-like decline. This is the truth behind Bitcoin’s rapid plunge without major negative news.
What’s more worth deep reflection is the deep binding relationship between Tether, Bitcoin, and the entire crypto industry. Many mistakenly think USDT is an independent stable tool outside the market, but in fact, they are deeply intertwined, with mutual利益.
Bitcoin is the core asset of the crypto industry, the market’s barometer. Continuous Bitcoin上涨 creates extreme wealth effects, driving altcoin爆发 and market trading热度; market繁荣 causes USDT circulation demand to surge, directly boosting Tether’s corporate profits.
Simply put, Tether’s livelihood is firmly in the hands of Bitcoin and the crypto market. With nearly 100,000 BTC and billions in unrealized profits, Tether has no motivation for large-scale dumping. Large-scale Bitcoin reduction is equivalent to self-destructing the Great Wall, destroying the industry ecosystem that sustains itself.
From a fundamental perspective, this small sale of 204 BTC is most likely just routine liquidity operations by the company, unrelated to bearish sentiment or high-level cashing out. But capital markets never speak of absolute rationality, only market sentiment and expectations.
In a bull market, market sentiment is optimistic, and any tiny消息 will be interpreted as极大利好; during corrections and fragile sentiment phases, any abnormal操作 will be amplified by the market as ultimate negative news, triggering collective恐慌.
At this point, everyone in the market is discussing a core question: are top-tier institutions deliberately breaking信仰 with small sales, or are they intentionally制造利空,压低行情, and收割廉价筹码?
This is the exact reason for Bitcoin’s current暴跌:
Bn sells 58,000 BTC (about $4.3 billion)
Coinb sells 33,700 BTC (about $2.4 billion)
OK sells 14,200 BTC (about $1 billion)
Byb sells 11,500 BTC (about $830 million)
Wintermute sells 8,800 BTC (about $634 million)
Saylor sells 443 BTC (first sale in four years)
Total sales within 7 days: 126,643 BTC
Is this coordinated manipulation?
Considering the institutions’ cost basis, industry interests, and market structure, the likelihood of joint洗盘 is very high.
Top-tier institutions hold absolute informational and chip advantages. When the market is at a stage-high and retail sentiment is狂热, they don’t need large-scale dumping; just breaking their long-held信仰 with a tiny amount of chips to create negative expectations can trigger retail panic selling and quickly suppress the price.
When the market undergoes deep correction, market sentiment hits rock bottom, and cheap chips are everywhere, these cash-rich institutions can again accumulate at low levels, further lowering their cost basis and expanding their chip advantage, laying enough profit space for the next bull run.
Looking at the cyclical nature of the crypto market, the eternal truth remains: retail earns from sentiment, institutions earn from expectations. The surface price fluctuations are just price movements; the underlying game is always institutions leveraging information and advantages to harvest emotional retail traders.
The core lesson from this collective loosening of institutions is very clear: there are no永恒的信仰 in the crypto market, only永恒的利益. The so-called diamond hands locking positions are just because the利益空间 hasn’t been reached; seemingly sudden利空跳水 is most likely a carefully laid market game.
Until market sentiment is fully修复 and institutional actions become clear, the震荡调整 is likely to continue, and blindly bottom-fishing or panic selling will be the behaviors most prone to losses in this market game.