Bitcoin trading on the digital currency exchange BitMEX experienced abnormalities. During a period of insufficient liquidity, a seller sold more than 400 Bitcoins to the market in a short period of time, triggering a flash crash in the price of Bitcoin on the BitMEX platform, once falling below an astonishing $9,000. At the same time, the price of Bitcoin on other exchanges Bitcoin price remains above $66,000.

Anonymous crypto community member syq wrote:

Someone sold more than 400 Bitcoins in batches of 10-50 Bitcoins in the past 2 hours, causing the XBTUSDT trading pair on Bitmex to experience more than 30% slippage. They lost at least $4 million.

I guess they're over it for now. So far, after 3.5 hours, the total trading volume is just under 1,000 Bitcoins, with the lowest price being $8,900. BitMEX has now disabled withdrawals.

Subsequently, BitMEX investigated related abnormal activities. A BitMEX spokesperson said the company investigated the incident and discovered aggressive selling behavior by a small number of accounts that was outside the expected market range, adding that its systems were operating normally and all user funds were safe. BitMEX exchange later posted on social media that "this will not affect any derivatives markets, nor will it affect the index price of our popular XBT derivatives contract."

It is worth noting that Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of the BitMEX exchange, has previously stated that if a spot Bitcoin ETF is too successful, it could completely destroy Bitcoin:

Bitcoin ETF issuers holding large amounts of Bitcoin will have a negative impact on the number of transactions on the Bitcoin network, and miners will lose the incentive to maintain transaction verification. The end result is that miners shut down their machines because they can no longer afford the energy required to run them. Without miners, the network would die and Bitcoin would disappear.

Bitcoin has retraced more than $10,000 from last week’s high

Bitcoin has retreated in recent days after hitting a record high of nearly $74,000 last week. Although there were no astonishing prices falling below $10,000 on other exchanges on Tuesday, they generally fell below the $63,000 mark, retracing more than $10,000 from the all-time high.

Bitcoin ETF products experienced the largest net outflow of funds since its establishment on Monday, with outflows from Grayscale’s GBTC dominating the list.

Despite the pessimism in the market and the recent poor performance of Bitcoin, MicroStrategy, one of the largest public holders of Bitcoin, recently completed another issuance of convertible notes to increase its Bitcoin reserves. The total amount of notes issued is $603.75 million.

When asked if the company would sell its reserve of 190,000 Bitcoins, company co-founder Saylor said, "I will always buy, Bitcoin is the exit strategy."

Could the world’s largest pension fund enter the game?

Another big news in the Bitcoin market this week is that the world’s largest pension fund, the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), announced that it will explore the possibility of diversifying part of its investment portfolio into the Bitcoin field.

According to the announcement, as part of its diversification efforts, the GPIF will solicit information on illiquid alternative assets such as Bitcoin, gold, forests and farmland. GPIF said it seeks basic knowledge of the target assets and wants to understand how overseas pension funds incorporate these assets into their portfolios.

Although GPIF does not currently invest in the above-mentioned assets, the move shows that the fund is actively researching other investment options besides stocks and bonds. GPIF manages over $1.5 trillion in assets, and even a small allocation to Bitcoin could significantly impact the price of the digital currency.

Financial blog Zerohedge commented that there is an important potential source of rising Bitcoin prices—foreign exchange reserves. Analysts at Standard Chartered Bank recently predicted that it is increasingly likely that large reserve fund managers will announce purchases of Bitcoin in 2024.