Massive Sell Order Flash Crashed Bitcoin’s Price to $51K on Bitstamp

Bitcoin tapped a fresh high during Monday morning’s Asian trading session. At the time of writing, BTC prices were still close to those levels at $56,700.

• Bitcoin has posted its third weekly green candle and fourth on the daily time frame. The asset has gained an impressive 17% over the past 7 days and 31% over the past fortnight.
• However, there was a discrepancy on one popular trading venue, as pointed out by the Twitter trader “Hsaka” –  a flash crash that occurred on the Bitstamp exchange. Prices plummeted to around $51K on the platform following a large spot sale, but markets elsewhere were not affected.

What kind of neanderthal market sells $40m spot on Bitstamp. pic.twitter.com/UiWTnbF9dg

— Hsaka (@HsakaTrades) October 10, 2021

• A flash crash is typically described as an event in which the price of an asset drops immediately by a large percentage and spikes back up immediately. This is what transpired on Bitstamp hours ago.
• BTC stood around $55,500 before it suddenly plummeted to $51,000, as the chart below demonstrates. It bounced off just as fast. TradingView volume data shows that there were 212 bitcoins being sold at that minute, which most likely caused the sharp drop.

BTCUSD Flash Crash on Bitstamp. Source: TradingView

• It’s worth noting that this is not an isolated incident in the cryptocurrency space. CryptoPotato has reported several such examples in the past where the price of BTC dumped by double-digit percentages in seconds.
• Also, some alternative coins have been affected. Earlier this year, the DOT/USD Quarterly perpetual futures contract on the COIN margined section of Binance Futures went through a massive flash crash as the price dipped from a high of $33.862 to a low of $0.20 in an instant.