Bitcoin experienced extreme volatility on December 17 with a $6,000 price swing in two hours, liquidating nearly $400 million across 120,000 traders in suspected market manipulation.
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On December 17, Bitcoin went through a highly volatile two-hour up-and-down swing, liquidating both short and long positions in an aggressive pump, followed by an aggressive dump—each moving BTC’s price around $3,000.

Bull Theory posted about this movement, highlighting a $3,300 Bitcoin

BTC
$85 748



24h volatility:
1.8%


Market cap:
$1.71 T



Vol. 24h:
$47.56 B



pump in 30 minutes that liquidated $106 million of short positions, making it a short-squeeze event. Then, the leading cryptocurrency gave all these gains back with a $3,400 dump in the following 45 minutes, liquidating $52 million worth of long positions, per the analyst, registering a long-squeeze event.

“Insane level of manipulation in crypto,” Bull Theory concluded.

🚨BREAKING: Bitcoin pumped $3,300 and liquidated $106 million worth of shorts in just 30 minutes.

But then it dumped $3,400 and liquidated $52 million worth of longs in next 45 minutes.

Insane level of manipulation in crypto. pic.twitter.com/5zrlnsIhgj

— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) December 17, 2025

Other analysts noticed the same movement, reporting at different moments and covering different perspectives of the same event. DEGEN NEWS described it as Bitcoin printing “two straight volatile hourly candles,” while zerohedge doubled down on the “10am slam algo” thesis, describing the event as a “$5,000 swing in the past hour” of his post.

Both zerohedge and Bull Theory have commented before about what they believe is a planned market manipulation that happens at 10:00 a.m. EST, during the US market opening, as Coinspeaker reported on December 12.

Bitcoin Price Analysis and $100M Liquidations

Overall, this recent swing liquidated more than 120,000 traders for nearly $400 million in the last 24 hours. Out of that, over $340 million happened in the last 12 hours alone and $310 million in the past 4 hours of this writing—aligned to the pump and dump event reported by multiple sources.

Looking at Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, it liquidated $108 million in four hours, according to data from CoinGlass. $75 million were from short positions and $32 million from long positions, per CoinGlass. Ethereum

ETH
$2 809



24h volatility:
4.2%


Market cap:
$339.02 B



Vol. 24h:
$25.33 B



liquidated a similar total, but with a dominance from the long-squeeze side.

Liquidation heatmap and total liquidations, as of December 17 | Source: CoinGlass

In TradingView’s indexed Bitcoin price chart we can see the pump and dump from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. EST in two hourly candlesticks. The movement started at $87,100, went up to $90,300, and came back down to $87,200

Bitcoin price chart | Source: TradingView

Bitcoin is currently changing hands at $86,600, down 1.35% intraday. Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $277 million in net outflows on December 16, led by BlackRock’s IBIT, Coinspeaker reported, shedding light on how Wall Street players are positioning themselves around Bitcoin.

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