This isn’t an Agatha Christie novel, but the crypto world is buzzing over the cloak-and-dagger appearance of a new wallet. Like a proper thriller, this wallet emerged on October 10, 2025, and swiftly opened Bitcoin shorts worth $1.1 billion and Ethereum shorts in the hundreds of millions. The kicker? It timed these trades 30 minutes before the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, announced a bombshell: 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, on top of the existing 30%, plus a ban on software exports. This was in response to China’s retreat from exporting minerals critical for U.S. technology.
Trump’s rug-pull on China wasn’t entirely out of the blue, and the market’s nosedive feels eerily familiar to the chaos of October’s earlier tariff announcements. The fallout was brutal: markets bled $1.6 trillion, with the crypto market hit by $19 billion in liquidations. Bitcoin plummeted 10% overnight from its all-time high of $125,000, and Ethereum took a similar beating.
While the wallet’s owner remains a mystery, we can piece together some clues to narrow down the culprit:
- Short positions require hefty capital to cover potential losses. Remember Melvin Capital, which had to borrow billions to cover its failed GameStop short? This tells us the player was either an individual with over a billion in collateral or an institutional investor with serious cash to risk.
- Creating a fresh wallet raises red flags. If you’re savvy with Bitcoin, you’d likely already have one, pointing to a calculated, clandestine move rather than a lucky punt.
- The timing screams insider knowledge. While it could be a meticulously planned bet based on leaked news of China’s minerals ban, the precision—last short at 4:49 PM EST, Trump’s tweet at 4:50 PM—suggests someone might have known the 47th President’s next move.
We may never unmask who shorted the market, but it’s a stark reminder that timing is everything in crypto for those dazzling wins. The wallet walked away with $200 million in profits in a day. Still, for the rest of us, buying low and selling high remains the steady path to gains.