Crypto Bloodbath: Bitcoin Plunges as JPMorgan Points Finger at Digital Natives for Mass Selloff
Bitcoin's brutal slide continues—and Wall Street's biggest players are naming names.
The Blame Game Heats Up
JPMorgan analysts aren't mincing words, directly attributing the latest crypto carnage to digital asset natives dumping positions. The selloff's velocity suggests coordinated movement among those who've been in the game longest.
Market Mechanics Exposed
When crypto OGs start selling, the entire market feels the tremor. These aren't nervous newcomers—they're seasoned players making calculated exits that ripple across exchanges globally.
Funny how traditional banks suddenly become crypto experts when prices drop—almost makes you wonder if they're talking their book while pointing fingers elsewhere.
📉 Crypto Selloff - “The Natives Did It”
It’s been a long-standing joke: “Are the sellers in the room with us?”
Well, it turns out: Yes, indeed they are.
📌 What Happened?
According to JPMorgan, the sharp crypto correction last week in crypto and carrying through this week was largely self-inflicted.
In a note to clients, the bank said the sell pressure came from crypto-native investors, not institutions.
The data backs that up: While open interest on Binance and other offshore venues cratered, CME’s institutional contracts barely moved.
It’s very much a tale of two markets.
Regarding on-chain crypto, the more than $19 billion in liquidations that slammed the crypto market on Friday have tremendously impacted sentiment and prices, neither of which have yet to recover.
Glassnode shows nearly $12 billion in futures open interest evaporated overnight, the biggest single-day decline in dollar terms ever.
Yet, institutional FLOW looks calm.
The ETFs have seen steady inflows through the turbulence. Across the past two weeks:
CME’s Bitcoin open interest held steady, ETF outflows were minor, and Coinbase volumes even ticked up, suggesting that institutional money (smart money) mostly watched from the sidelines.
This was the crypto casino cleaning itself out, not TradFi calling it quits.
🧠 Why It Matters
The institutions have mostly still been buying through the pain —so who has been selling?
Answer: ancient whales and 4-year cycle believers.
There’s plenty of data showing the amount of bitcoin sold this year from those ancient whales, many of whom were up billions. They said they were going to dump their coins on Wall St., and then they did.
And then one of the biggest anecdotal takeaways from the Asia crypto conference tour last month was that many Asian whales still believe in the 4-year cycle, and fully planned on selling this year aligned with prior cycles.
While this has put us in a painful spot, there are reasons to be optimistic.
Couple those reasons along with the recent on-chain leverage flushout and you have a nice foundation to set up a healthier base for the next leg upwards—not to mention the prospective gold-to-Bitcoin rally that typically takes place when Gold leads (and boy, is it leading right now).
So stay the course, bulls—this too shall pass. And we have a good shot at seeing new ATHs still here in 2025…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes
A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs
In Memes
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
