The value of Bitcoin has now descended below $26,000, marking a decline of approximately 12% over the course of this week (or more like the past 48h). A lot of people have been grabbing onto the headlines about SpaceX, even if the only source for this was an article is Wall Street Journal (that nobody seemed to have read themselves) that is still not confirmed. This very quickly fell into the murky waters of "fake news" in my eyes. And I am not alone with this view, since it only takes a simple search online to see article after article looking further into this. On X this even triggered warnings to be added to people posting about this, to make it clear that the source for these claims is not confirmed.
And even if this will end up as being correct information, people still need to take a further look into information than just headlines. I have stumbled onto loads of articles and users online that seem to think that SpaceX sold all their bitcoin two days ago. Confirming that those people have not even checked one article about what they claimed happened.
Wall Street Journal cited internal documents from SpaceX in their article, documents that is claimed to show that SpaceX wrote down their Bitcoin holdings in 2021 and 2022. That's it. But people still talk about this like Elon just suddenly made a secret move two days ago and sold all Bitcoin for some super complex reason. This report came out AFTER the plunge and there's ZERO evidence at this moment in time that this is even correct info.
Market experts assert that the sudden downturn is more plausibly attributed to market structure and liquidations rather than ONE solitary fundamental trigger. Furthermore, the market has exhibited a state of relative illiquidity and stability this summer, fostering an environment conducive to abrupt shifts. This dynamic emerges due to the fact that, as prices for Bitcoin declined, long traders must liquidate their positions to prevent getting liquidated themselves. This highly affects the heightened selling pressure, while simultaneously initiating an unending cycle of decreasing prices and the need to cover even more long positions. Another certain fundamental triggers include the previously mentioned escalation of interest rates in the US.
The irony with this is that Bitcoin holders who fell for these fake news, that Bitcoin Magazine was one of the biggest actors who started to pump out, and got affected by the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) leading to them acting on this. So, right now it seems like SpaceX itself did not affect the price. But instead Bitcoin holders who did not do their own research, have a critical view and source criticism that lead to them panic selling.
Am I the only one seeing the irony with this happening with Bitcoin with a huge community that is often talking about how this digital currency is a lot safer than FIAT and that it's a mean to break free from being "a sheep", but then fall for one false Twitter headline just because they see Musk as some higher power? The people that are the most critical of the media and political landscape was now showing of how they themselves don't know about source criticism and taking a step back when news reaches them.
Hopefully this was a good lesson about how you can't grow your worldview by reading headlines.
