Bitcoin fell below $111,300. Ethereum slipped to about $4,500 after an attempt to test $5,000.
At the time of writing, bitcoin trades at $111,287 (-3% over 24 hours), according to CoinGecko. The second-largest cryptocurrency stands at $4,577 (-4% over 24 hours).
Amid the pullback, 24-hour liquidations reached $812.07 million.
The drop followed a brief rally. The price of digital gold topped $117,000, and Ethereum reached $4,900. The market’s rise was sparked by comments from Fed chair Jerome Powell about a possible rate cut.
Kronos Research CIO Vincent Liu told The Block that the rally after the chair’s remarks reflected thin liquidity rather than investor conviction. Once leverage was reduced and no new catalysts emerged, the momentum quickly faded.
The legend of a mysterious whale
On X, users flagged a large bitcoin holder who allegedly sold more than 24,000 BTC over several days, triggering a sharp price drop. WhaleWire CEO Jacob King posted screenshots showing the 19D5J…WoZ1C wallet moving 3,000–6,000 BTC to various addresses.
JUST IN: #Bitcoin flash crash today, which wiped out $310M in long positions, has been traced to a SINGLE Bitcoin whale dumping BTC for ETH.
The whale sold 24,000+ BTC, including coins that hadn’t moved in 5+ years, sending 12,000+ #BTC today alone to the Hyperunite trading… pic.twitter.com/h5jEt92Sys
— Jacob King (@JacobKinge) August 24, 2025
He said most of the funds were rotated into Ethereum: $2 billion was bought and $1.3 billion sent to staking.
According to Blockchain.com, over nine days the whale moved 24,000 BTC in six transactions.
According to the analyst known as MLM, the same whale uses other wallets to make additional Ethereum purchases on Hyperliquid.
This guy is really rotating everything into ETH huh?
So far he has sold 18.142K BTC worth $2.04B at current prices.
He’s now selling the last 5.968K BTC ($670M), of which 4.968K BTC ($678M) is still outside Hyperliquid.
So far, the 2 entities have bought 416.598K ETH…
— MLM (@mlmabc) August 24, 2025
In total, 275,500 ETH worth about $1.3 billion were staked, suggesting a long-term strategy.
MLM says the whale also opened a long position on Hyperliquid for 135,263 ETH. His overall Ethereum position exceeded $2.6 billion. The strategy let him outpace other market participants and yielded $185 million in profit from trading the ETH/BTC pair.
At first, the value of his long positions rose as traders reacted to spot buying. When the whale began to close longs, market participants recognised the strategy and triggered a cascade of selling.
“He essentially front-ran those who tried to front-run him,” MLM concluded.
The founder of TimechainIndex.com, known as Sani, noted that 152,874 BTC remain on the whale’s other wallets.
🚨🚨🚨 This entity still holds a total of 152,874 BTC across all associated addresses, including 5,266 BTC in the address shown below.
The funds originally came from HTX about six years ago and had remained inactive until recent transactions involving one of their addresses… https://t.co/k9Z3Xmhz7E
— Sani | TimechainIndex.com (@SaniExp) August 24, 2025
He said the funds were withdrawn from the HTX exchange about six years ago and remained dormant until 16 August.
However, Liu of Kronos Research believes it is difficult to single out one culprit for the price drop. He suggested it was the result of several whales or an exchange with sizeable reserves, rather than a lone player.
Analyst Willy Woo said bitcoin’s slow ascent in the current cycle is due to selling by “old whales”. By his estimate, it takes more than $110,000 of new capital to absorb each bitcoin they sell.
Why is BTC moving up so slowly this cycle?
BTC supply is concentrated around OG whales who peaked their holdings in 2011 (orange and dark orange).
They bought their BTC at $10 or lower. It takes $110k+ of new capital to absorb each BTC they sell. pic.twitter.com/7CbWXsvX2l
— Willy Woo (@woonomic) August 24, 2025
Woo noted that these investors accumulated most of their coins in 2011 at $10 or lower. The gap between their cost basis and the scale of their holdings exerts a significant influence on market dynamics.
Earlier, Santiment said that the growing number of social-media mentions of a Fed rate cut could serve as a warning for the crypto market.