From Terra to Bitcoin: How an old case ignited the "10am Dump" and ETF manipulation theories

Author: CoinFound

I. Introduction: Terra's old case is being revisited; the market needs a "villain."

In February 2026, the Terra crash, a story that should have been relegated to history, was brought back to the forefront. The difference this time was that the storytellers no longer emphasized the "failure of the algorithmic stabilization mechanism," but instead reconstructed the causal chain in a more communicative way: in the critical minutes before the crash, someone possessed significant non-public information and precisely preemptively profited, turning a systemic disaster into a financial gain .

This narrative has three natural advantages:

1. It's simple enough : it transforms the risk of complex systems into "someone jumping the gun".

2. It is concrete enough : from a systemic flaw, it becomes "a certain institution".

3. It is emotional enough : victims can easily engage in "attribution" and "projection".

The object of the projection is precisely a "visible yet unclear" role in the crypto world: a top market maker and an ETF Authorized Participant (AP) .

When market sentiment is already searching for a nameable explanation, a symbolic name like "Jane Street" is almost destined to be thrust into the spotlight.

II. Trigger: How old charges were pieced together with "10am Dump"

At the chart level, crypto traders' memory of the "10am Dump" is concrete:
Around 10 AM Eastern Time, BTC often experiences a rapid drop of 1%–3%, triggering a liquidation of leveraged long positions, followed by a rebound or stabilization.

Such "highly regular fluctuations" are inherently easy to interpret as "human-made." When the old Terra case complaint provided a narrative template of a "minute-level window of opportunity," social media naturally pieced the two together into the same storyline:

• Past Events: Some People Acted in Advance During the "Critical Window" Before Terra's Collapse

• Currently: BTC experiences precise price manipulation at the "key window" of 10 AM daily.

• Conclusion: Same type of institution, same tactics, same black box system.

Thus, "10am Dump" evolved from a trading experience into a collective trial of ETF mechanisms, AP permissions, and TradeFi market makers.

III. Why Jane Street was "named": Identity, Access, and Criminal Record.

Jane Street is thrust into the spotlight not only because it is "possible," but also because it "fits the narrative."

1) Identity: The visibility of a top TradeFi market maker in Crypto

Jane Street is typically positioned as a quantitative liquidity provider:

• Earning small profits from price differences and execution efficiency

• Use multi-market hedging to break down exposure into controllable fragments.

• Surviving Through Cycles with Inventory Management and Risk Budgeting

The actions of such institutions are extremely easy to misinterpret in a highly leveraged, encrypted environment:
A routine risk management action (reducing positions/hedging/adjusting inventory) can be amplified by a liquidation waterfall and become a "precise harvest."

2) Channel: The ETF/AP mechanism is inherently an "off-chain black box"

The creation/redemption mechanism of ETFs is a mature arbitrage device in traditional finance.
However, in the context of Crypto, AP carries an "original sin":

• Execution does not occur on the chain.

• Order flow is not auditable

• Details are protected by confidentiality agreements and the organization's internal risk control measures.

• Disclosures (such as 13F) are delayed and incomplete.

When the market sees "a 10-point plunge + liquidation" but not "hedging path + redemption rhythm + OTC settlement", conspiracy theories become the easiest explanatory model.

3) Filters: Cross-market disputes will quickly migrate to encryption.

Once an organization is labeled "manipulated" or "controversial" in other markets (regardless of the details of the facts), it will be prioritized as a "suspect" in any anomalies in the crypto market.
This is not a chain of evidence, but a law of social communication: prior suspicion will automatically seek posterior corroboration.

IV. Key Disagreement: You think the argument is about "manipulation," but it's actually about "explainability."

In the "10am Dump" controversy, the real issue between the two sides is not "whether an organization is stronger," but rather:

• From a retail investor's perspective : I've observed a pattern of liquidation, and I can't explain it.

• From an institutional perspective : What I'm doing is hedging and rebalancing; you're only seeing the price results.

• Institutional perspective : Disclosure rules allow for "semi-transparency," thus making it impossible to disprove any explanation.

in other words:

When a gap in transparency persists for a long time, conspiracy theories can become an alternative explanatory infrastructure.

V. Breaking down "10am Dump": Phenomenon, Propagation, and Possible Mechanisms

To discuss the "10am Dump," it needs to be broken down into at least three parts:

A) Phenomenon layer: Fluctuations are more likely to occur around 10 o'clock.

Many traders can attest to this, but experience does not equate to statistical proof.
Even if there are frequent "10-point fluctuations" in a certain period, it may be a phase-specific result of the market structure.

B) Dissemination layer: Social media uses "causation" instead of "relevance".

Social media communication likes three things:

• Single villain

• Clear Motivation

• The script can be recounted ("the market crashes at 10 AM every day").

Therefore, "screenshot + time alignment + emotional narrative" will quickly outperform "backtesting + confidence interval + counterfactual testing".

C) Mechanism Level: A Simpler and More Probable Explanation

Even acknowledging that the 10 o'clock window is more prone to fluctuations, there are several "more routine" mechanistic explanations:

1. Liquidity Restructuring After US Stock Market Opens <br data-start="2550" data-end="2553">In the period following the opening of the US stock market, cross-asset risk budgets, volatility surfaces, ETF flows, and futures-spot basis may all be repriced.
   It is not unusual for BTC, as part of a "basket of risky assets," to fluctuate synchronously during this window.

2. High leverage + insufficient order book depth : When derivative leverage is too high and the order book is too thin, medium-sized selling pressure may trigger a liquidation chain reaction, forming a waterfall.
   This explains "why it looks like someone pressed a button," but it doesn't require assuming "someone must be manipulating it."

3. Dynamic hedging of Delta-neutral inventory for market makers

   One common misconception in the market is that seeing an institution "holding a lot" does not necessarily mean it is "bullish".
   Many positions are held to hedge against derivative risks. Hedging activities occurring concentrated in certain time windows do not necessarily equate to a directional sell-off.

6. The "illusion of evidence" on the 13th floor: You only see half of the ledger.

A common piece of the puzzle in the "manipulation theory" is to cite an institution's 13F disclosures to prove that "it has huge holdings, so it can manipulate."
However, 13F only discloses some of the long positions in US stocks, and does not disclose :

• The direction of options and futures

• Swaps and OTC hedging

• Inter-exchange order splitting path

• AP Redemption and Inventory Transfer Details

Therefore, 13F is more like a photo that "only shows the front":
You can see what it holds in the foreground, but you can't see how it hedges, balances, or neutralizes its exposure behind the scenes.

This is not to whitewash the institution, but to point out that 13F alone cannot complete the evidence loop for the "manipulation" allegations.

VII. The dissemination logic of Terra's lawsuit: slow legal procedures, fast trial by media.

The reason the Terra case resurfaced in 2026 was not because it suddenly offered more substantial facts, but because it provided a story structure more suitable for dissemination:

• "Revisiting old cases" is inherently dramatic.

• The "key minute window" is naturally suitable for aligning candlestick chart screenshots.

• "Secret communication" is naturally suitable for secondary creation.

• "Wall Street giants" are naturally suited to be the villains of the crypto world.

While court evidence is still being presented and details are still being obscured, social media has already reached its conclusions.
Once a conclusion is reached first, all subsequent data will be used to account for "confirmation bias".

8. The real structural problem: ETFs bring TradeFi rules into Crypto

If you broaden your perspective, you'll find that the "10am Dump" controversy is merely a symptom. The deeper change is:

1) The pricing of BTC is being reshaped by the "traditional financial timeline".

In the past, BTC was more like a 24-hour crypto native asset.
However, as ETF flows, AP hedging, and traditional institutional risk control measures come into play, BTC volatility will increasingly occur at "critical moments in traditional finance."

2) Crypto's transparency standards encounter TradFi's implementation black box.

Crypto culture is about "on-chain transparency".
However, the culture of ETFs is "efficiency first, confidentiality in execution".
It's not a matter of who's right and who's wrong, but rather a friction between two systems:

3) The disclosure system determines that "controversy will persist for a long time."

As long as the rules allow:

• Delayed disclosure

• Incomplete disclosure

• If off-chain execution is not auditable, then the market will never be able to distinguish between them.

• Price shocks caused by normal hedging

• Manipulation that deliberately drives up prices for profit

Conspiracy theories will periodically resurface until stronger audits and more explainable infrastructure emerge.

9. CoinFound's Perspective: Instead of guessing "who is selling," it's better to put the structural variables into the same timeline.

CoinFoundry focuses more on quantifiable and verifiable structural variables , shifting the debate from "personalized attribution" back to "mechanisms and data":

• The window (time structure) in which price fluctuations occur

• Leverage and Liquidation Strength (Market Microstructure)

• ETF fund flows and demand-side support (fund structure)

• Mint/Burn, the difference between on-chain and off-chain traffic (infrastructure structure)

• Changes in the concentration of main holdings (concentration structure)

You may not be able to immediately prove "who the seller is," but you can distinguish them more clearly:

• It's a stabilization caused by "increased demand."

• Or is it a "short-term behavioral change triggered by a single event"?

• Or is it a "chain reaction caused by structural fragility"?

This is the first step in turning the "conspiracy theory controversy" into a "researchable issue".

10. Conclusion: This controversy will not disappear; it will become the norm in the new cycle.

Does “10am Dump” have a repeatable structural pattern? Possibly.
Is it possible to attribute "manipulation" to a specific institution based on publicly available information? Currently, that's difficult.
But this doesn't mean the discussion is meaningless—on the contrary, it reveals a more important fact:

When the market is in a combination of "high leverage + multi-market execution + delayed disclosure", any regular fluctuations will be quickly personalized and attributed.
This is not because traders are "stupider," but because the system lacks "explainability."

The real solution is not to create another villain, but to improve the market's auditability, interpretability, and visibility of structural variables .