Aside from being the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, El Salvador’s move on Tuesday (Sept. 7) was monumental in several ways. It triggered a four-month-high price surge on Monday (Sept. 6), a Twitter campaign, a Reddit rally, and then a 17% freefall on Tuesday afternoon.
The always-volatile bitcoin prices were on the upswing 24 hours before El Salvador’s law was official, with prices hitting a four-month high of $51,908 on Monday — a 2.5% gain.
See also: El Salvador Buys $21M Bitcoin as It Marks Crypto’s Cash Debut
The gains were soon wiped out as prices plunged Tuesday afternoon on one of the most volatile trading days for the digital currency, news sites reported.
The rally bottomed out with a price freefall that put bitcoin at $47,159.92, down almost 9%, according to Coinbase data. At 5:30 a.m., the price was $51,270.30.
Whales — entities holding enough cryptocurrency that they have the potential to manipulate the currency valuations — were blamed for the big sell-off that sent prices spiraling downward.
Read more: El Salvador’s Risky Legal Tender Leap Into Bitcoin
Trader and analyst Scott Melker put the blame for the price drop squarely on whales.
“Leave it to whales to dump Bitcoin on the day that El Salvador makes it legal tender,” he said.
Related news: Ethereum Whales Move $500M Across 13 Trades
The original rally was in part buoyed by the Twitter hashtag campaign #7SeptemberBuyBTC, which aimed to promote a coordinated plan to use the $30 in Bitcoin gifted by the government and show support for the country’s new law.
You may also like: Adults In El Salvador Get $30 In Crypto Ahead Of Bitcoin Legalization
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, meanwhile, made several purchases on Monday (Sept. 6) totaling 400 bitcoin with an approximate value of $21 million and also encouraged people to buy the digital currency.
Reddit also supported the campaign, rallying support from the 3.3 million members in the subreddit r/bitcoin. One user calculated that if all of the users participated, they could possibly purchase some $99.5 million in bitcoin.
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