Is the pattern of Bitcoin crashes at 10 a.m. proving that Gary Gensler was right?

Source: Yellow Original Title: Is Bitcoin’s 10 a.m. Crash Pattern Demonstrating That Gary Gensler Was Right?

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Background

A recurring intraday pattern of sharp fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price is reigniting the debate over market manipulation just as U.S. regulators intensify warnings about structural vulnerabilities in the cryptocurrency markets.

What happened

On Wednesday, Bitcoin surged nearly $2,900 in the first 30 minutes of U.S. stock market trading, rising from around $87,500 to over $90,300, before sharply reversing around 10 a.m. ET.

Then, the cryptocurrency plummeted $4,000 over the next 90 minutes, erasing nearly $130 billion in total market capitalization.

According to CoinGlass data, in the last 24 hours, 147,998 traders were liquidated, and total liquidations exceeded $514 million.

Market operators note that this sequence has repeated with striking similarity on several recent trading days, leading independent analysts to describe the behavior as “the same time, the same pattern.”

The repetition has sparked renewed debate over the integrity of the digital asset market, including whether longstanding concerns from the SEC have been confirmed.

A prominent commentator publicly questioned whether “Gary Gensler was actually protecting retail investors from manipulation by these large institutions.”

Why it matters

Gensler, who has led the SEC since 2021, has repeatedly maintained that most cryptocurrency transactions occur on platforms lacking the basic safeguards that are standard in U.S. stock markets.

Under his leadership, the agency has emphasized that cryptocurrency exchanges operate without the oversight, audit trails, or conflict-of-interest rules required of national stock exchanges.

Gensler has also cited the widespread practice of wash trading in offshore markets and the ease with which large operators can influence sparsely regulated liquidity pools.

Although spot Bitcoin ETFs were launched under his supervision, Gensler has consistently warned that “crypto markets are riddled with fraud, manipulation, and abuse,” presenting regulation as a necessary layer of protection for retail participants.

The SEC has filed dozens of enforcement actions against exchanges and brokers for failing to implement market integrity controls similar to those used in equities and derivatives.

The recent price action has reignited the core question underlying much of its regulatory agenda: whether market infrastructure makes digital assets particularly susceptible to sharp, synchronized moves driven by concentrated actors whose identities remain opaque.

For now, the pattern remains unexplained, but with hundreds of millions of dollars liquidated in minutes, the debate over Bitcoin’s market structure is likely to intensify, especially as regulators come into focus during an election year.