BlockTower Capital founder: Market makers primarily influence intraday fluctuations; the main reason for the BTC pullback is selling by early holders.

Ari Paul, founder of BlockTower Capital, stated that market makers may indeed engage in short-term trading in weak market conditions, such as slightly manipulating MSFT or BTC by about 2% to trigger stop-loss orders. However, such behavior is typically intraday speculation, with prices often returning to normal within seconds or minutes, having limited impact on the long-term trend of highly liquid assets like Bitcoin ETFs. He pointed out that the main reason for this round of BTC decline was the selling of tens of thousands of BTC by early holders, coupled with insufficient market buying. Ari Paul believes that while long-term large-scale manipulation is not entirely impossible, it is less likely and carries higher risk. In most cases, market deviations from expectations should not be simply attributed to "manipulation," and investors should optimize their analytical frameworks. Furthermore, compared to "downward manipulation," "upward manipulation" is more common across many asset classes.