A recurring intraday pattern of violent Bitcoin (BTC) price swings is renewing debate over market manipulation just as U.S. regulators intensify their warnings about structural vulnerabilities in cryptocurrency markets.
What Happened
On Wednesday, Bitcoin surged nearly $2,900 in the first 30 minutes of U.S. equity trading, climbing from about $87,500 to more than $90,300, before reversing sharply at roughly 10 A.M. ET.
The cryptocurrency then tumbled by $4,000 over the next 90 minutes, erasing nearly $130 billion in total market capitalization.
According to data from CoinGlass, in the past 24 hours, 147,998 traders were liquidated and the total liquidations exceeded $514 million.
The sequence, traders note, has played out with striking similarity on multiple recent trading days, prompting independent analysts to describe the behavior as “the same timing, the same pattern.”
The repetition has triggered renewed discussion about digital-asset market integrity, including whether the SEC’s long-time concerns have been vindicated.
One prominent commentator questioned publicly whether “Gary Gensler was actually protecting retail investors from manipulation by these big institutions.”
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Why It Matters
Gensler, who has led the SEC since 2021, has repeatedly argued that the majority of crypto trading occurs on venues that lack basic safeguards standard in U.S. securities markets.
Under his tenure, the agency has emphasized that crypto exchanges operate without the surveillance, audit trails, or conflict-of-interest rules required of national securities exchanges.
Gensler has also cited extensive wash-trading in offshore markets and the ease with which large traders can influence thinly regulated liquidity pools.
Although Bitcoin’s spot ETFs launched under his watch, Gensler has consistently warned that “the crypto markets are rife with fraud, manipulation, and abuse,” framing oversight as a necessary layer of protection for retail participants.
The SEC has brought dozens of enforcement actions against exchanges and broker-dealers for failing to implement market-integrity controls similar to those used in equities and derivatives.
The market's price action has revived the core question underlying much of his regulatory agenda: whether the market’s infrastructure makes digital assets uniquely susceptible to sharp, synchronized moves driven by concentrated actors whose identities remain opaque.
For now, the pattern remains unexplained, but with hundreds of millions of dollars liquidated in minutes, the debate over Bitcoin’s market structure is likely to intensify, especially as regulators enter an election-year spotlight.
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