Wall Street's Most Mysterious Money Machine: Dumping Bitcoin at 10 AM Sharp Every Day
A mysterious pattern dubbed the "Jane 10 AM Dump" has been observed in Bitcoin markets, where prices drop sharply each day at 10 AM EST, coinciding with the US stock market open. Traders and media, including ZeroHedge, point to Jane Street, a major market maker and large holder of BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), as the likely orchestrator—selling at 10 AM to then buy back at lower prices.
This theory gained traction amid a lawsuit from Terraform Labs' bankruptcy estate. The suit alleges Jane Street used insider information to exit TerraUSD (UST) positions just before its May 2022 collapse, avoiding $40 billion in losses. Key to the case is a former Terra intern, Bryce Pratt, who joined Jane Street and allegedly ran a secret chat group ("Bryce's Secret") to funnel non-public information from Terraform insiders.
The complaint details that Jane Street, which had a prior trading relationship with Terraform, withdrew 85 million UST from a liquidity pool minutes after Terraform secretly pulled 150 million UST—before public panic began. Chain analysis suggests Jane Street systematically reduced exposure pre-collapse.
Further supporting the pattern of misconduct, India's regulator SEBI fined Jane Street a record $570 million for a "pump-and-dump" scheme manipulating banking index options, exploiting retail investors.
While unproven, the cases depict Jane Street as a powerful, secretive firm adept at leveraging information advantages, now under scrutiny for practices that blur ethical and legal lines. The "10 AM dump" pattern reportedly stopped after the Terra lawsuit, adding circumstantial weight to the allegations.
marsbit02/26 01:09
