Claims that the Wall Street firm Jane Street causes a daily Bitcoin 'dump' at 10 a.m. resurfaced on December 12, after BTC quickly lost value during the day.
People on social media pointed again to institutional traders and ETF market makers. But data shows there is a more nuanced explanation.
What is the 'Jane Street 10 a.m.' narrative?
The theory says that Bitcoin is often sold around 9:30–10:00 a.m. ET, when the U.S. stock markets open. Jane Street is often mentioned because they are large market makers and authorized participants for U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs.
The claim is that these companies are pushing prices down to create forced sales and then buy cheap. But no regulatory authority, exchange, or data source has confirmed that such coordinated activity is taking place.
Data for Bitcoin futures does not show any aggressive selling
Bitcoin remained stable in price today when the U.S. market opened and stayed around 92,000–93,000 USD. There was no sudden or abnormal selling exactly at 10:00.
The rapid decline came later in the day, closer to lunchtime in the U.S. BTC briefly dropped below 90,000 USD before the price stabilized. This suggests a delay in pressure, not a reaction directly at the opening.
Open interest for Bitcoin futures on major exchanges was approximately unchanged. The total open interest remained stable, indicating that no significant new short positions were built up.
At CME, which is most important for institutional traders, open interest decreased slightly. Such a pattern usually means that risk is being removed or that one is hedging, not aggressive selling in one direction.
If a large company had initiated a coordinated sale, we would have seen a significant change in open interest. We did not see that.
Liquidations explain the movement
Data on liquidations explains more clearly. Over the last 24 hours, total crypto liquidations were over 430 million USD. Long positions accounted for most of that.
Only Bitcoin had more than 68 million USD in liquidations. Ethereum had even higher numbers. This shows that the entire market was cleared of leverage, not just Bitcoin.
When prices fall below key levels, forced liquidations can exacerbate the decline. This often leads to sharp drops without any single actor controlling it.
Most notably, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost 77 million USD on December 11, after two days of inflows. Today's short price drop was mainly related to this outflow.
The selling occurred on multiple exchanges such as Binance, CME, OKX, and Bybit. There are no signs that the selling was pressured on a single exchange or instrument.
This is important because coordinated manipulation tends to be clearly noticed. This event showed that many participated and that it was likely about automatic risk reductions.
Why the Jane Street story always comes back
Bitcoin variations often cluster around U.S. market hours, due to ETF trading, macro statistics, and institutional portfolio adjustments. Such structural factors can make the movements more patterned.
Jane Street is often seen in ETF trading and therefore becomes an easy target for rumors. However, market makers use hedging and inventory management, not attacking the direction of the price.
Today's event was similar to others in the crypto market. Leverage builds up, price falls, forced liquidations are triggered, and then explanations come afterward.
