On-chain data shows that a wealthy crypto investor lost $49,000 on a bad trade following false reports about BlackRock receiving approval on its Bitcoin ETF application.

• As noted by analysts from Lookonchain on Monday, an anonymous whale traded $613,201 in USDC for 20.5 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) using 1Inch shortly after the initial report dropped.
• At first, Bitcoin’s price had cracked above $29,000 in light of the news. However, after sources at Blackrock confirmed the news was fake, Bitcoin’s price quickly fell back to $28,000.
• Ten minutes after his purchase, the whale immediately sold all of his BTC back into dollars, but only received $563,970 USDC in return. That amounts to a $49,000 loss in just ten minutes.
• Data from Glassnode shows that price volatility around the event caused hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin futures open interest on BTC to be flushed within an hour.
• According to Coinglass, nearly 40,000 crypto traders have been liquidated within the past 24 hours.
• BlackRock’s approval would have marked the first spot Bitcoin ETF to reach US investors, which many suspect will welcome billions of dollars into BTC from institutions.
• In October, a former Blackrock executive predicted that a spot Bitcoin ETF would be approved by April 2024. Bloomberg ETF analysts also place a 90% likelihood of such an ETF being approved by early next year.