Are Bears “Panic Dumping” the Crypto Market on Bakkt News…

Is it Just Me, Or Does it Look Like the Bears Are Panicking Dumping the Market Before Everyone Realizes the Implications of Bakkt?

The crypto markets are in a downtrend, and large sell orders are aggressively being placed, yet crypto had one of the most bullish announcements in all of its history (Bakkt). It almost looks like the bears are, for lack of a better term, “panic dumping.”

Meaning, it looks to me like big players who are short Bitcoin or haven’t fully built a position, but who also understand what are happening with Bakkt, are expediting their planned dump, potentially attempting to get to their destination quickly before people realize what just occurred (that destination being large OTC buys lower, closing short positions, etc… I don’t know, I’m not inside their heads, I can only see the charts and order books).

The reason I say this is because selling ramped up today despite there being no bad news and instead being insanely good news that just dropped on Friday and is now spreading (through media, but not through crypto channels where it should be… which tells me the whales haven’t let out their whale calls yet).

Now with that said, there are legit reasons to be bearish despite all this, and we shouldn’t dismiss that.

One could argue, with all charts, from all coins, for all time considered that the crypto market is in a bear trend and the 2018 bear trend could very well continue.

However, one could argue we should be nearing recovery looking at those same charts and especially with the news cycle considered.

If there were no news I would be 50/50 myself; and if I were not a fan of crypto I might not even be betting on it (as it is a risky bet at the best of times).

However, there is news and I am a fan of crypto. So when I look at the charts and see ETH, BTC, and other major alts flattening in USD while BTC pairs are nearing recent or all time lows, I see it as a nice setup for a recovery and not a last ditch effort to survive.

I can’t ignore that 2018 has been full of downtrends not seen since 2014, and I do get why one might start panic selling upon our 4th time entering the $6k zone in 2018… but at the same time, I would assume that panic selling would be better done OTC. After-all OTC volume is way up and there is more than enough liquidity to panic sell there.

I mean, if I had enough ETH to put 500 ETH on every USD pair on every exchange or 70 BTC on every exchange or whatever (never mind hidden orders), and I real life wanted to sell everything quickly, I would for sure be selling over the counter like a normal person. I would not flash my orders up on the exchanges quickly and then retreat. Instead, I’d only do that if I had other plans.

Thus, given the above, I don’t think these massive disappearing orders are actual panic selling. I think they are “panic dumping.” That is, an expensive attempt at pushing the market down. Why spend an arm and leg to push the market down in a hurry if not for a reason?

Simply put, there is something really odd going on right now. To say it one last time: There are a lot of larger than usual sell orders popping on and off the order books right now working to push the prices of everything down, yet crypto just had what is most arguably the most bullish news in all of its history. Those two points don’t align for me unless the bear dump is just an expedited attempt to reach a goal before the next leg of hibernation.

The Bakkt news came suddenly and without warning on Friday, right in the middle of a downtrend where Bitcoin was forming a head and shoulders pattern (a bearish pattern that points to the downside).

From a short term technical perspective, it wouldn’t be surprising to me to know that big players were banking on that pattern playing out and even helping to push the whole pattern along. Now that might have worked, and that might have been perfecting timing in anticipation of the SolidX ETF… but thing is, Bakkt makes the SolidX ETF both more likely and unnecessary.

That means the only way you can get retail to panic on Aug 16 (the ETF date) is if the public fails to understand the implications of Bakkt (and somehow stays focused on the Winkevoss ETF… insert *eye rolling*).

Said plainly, it sort of feels like a bunch of whales just had a giant wrench thrown in their plans and they are panicking.

This means this is one of the few times when instead of retail panicking the big players are. Now, that isn’t something to celebrate, because it is a bit like the King having a tantrum (dangerous for the plebs), but it does seem notable and oddly satisfying.

Assuming that whole theory is true, the question becomes: What exactly was the target in the first place. Was the plan was to test support at $6.8k, was it to test the bottom of the 2018 range around $5.75k – $6k again, is the plan to take us as close to zero as we can go?

Really hard to say what will happen next. All I know is that this pairing of bearish price drop and bullish AF news makes very little sense without some sort of added explanation.