Bloodbath! The culprit behind the $BTC plunge identified: BlackRock IBIT's billion-dollar leveraged position was liquidated, and the market has entered a "surrender-style sell-off" phase?

Thursday’s market resembled an out-of-control financial machine. $BTC briefly dropped toward the $60,000 mark, but the real storm was brewing in a seemingly stable corner—the spot $BTC ETF, IBIT, by BlackRock.

Data shows that IBIT’s trading volume on that day reached an astonishing 284 million shares, with a nominal value surpassing $10 billion. This figure is 169% higher than its previous record, nearly doubling it. Meanwhile, its price plummeted 13%, hitting $36, the lowest in fifteen months.

The dual extremes of trading volume and price are typically signals of “capitulation selling” in Wall Street textbooks. This suggests that long-term holders may be giving up resistance and liquidating their positions at any cost. Such phases are often the most brutal in a bear market but can also indicate the beginning of a bottoming process.

Panic in the options market provides further evidence for this judgment. The premium of IBIT’s put options over call options surged over 25 volatility points, setting a record. The total premiums for put options used to hedge against downside risk reportedly reached a historic high of $900 million.

So, who is behind this sell-off? Market analysts point the finger at institutions. Parker White of DeFi Dev Corp speculates that the volatility may stem from large IBIT positions held by one or more hedge funds outside the crypto space.

These funds might have built highly leveraged options strategies, attempting to recover losses during declines or profit from rebounds. However, the continued downward movement of $BTC, coupled with macro pressures such as silver’s synchronized plunge on Thursday and yen carry trade unwinding, may have finally breached their risk thresholds, forcing forced liquidations.

Due to the delay in 13F institutional holdings disclosures, the specific fund responsible may not be identified until mid-May from public filings. But such a scale of trading activity, like a whale thrashing underwater, makes it difficult to hide the turbulence on the surface for long.

As a core tool for mainstream institutions to gain crypto exposure, IBIT’s abnormal fluctuations reflect a mirror of the current high-pressure market environment, where even the most professional players may face liquidity challenges. Some warn that even if signs of capitulation appear, it doesn’t mean the market has bottomed out; the duration of the bear market’s agony could exceed the capacity of most bottom-fishers’ funds and psychological endurance.

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