Just read a news about how a massive sell of BTC at Bitstamp crashed BTC price over 20% in just few minutes. This is not new and should not be surprised. We know that majority of BTC is held by few people. If they want to manipulate the price, they have all the power to do so. I am not suggesting this is what has happened, but simply pointing out a possibility and fact.
Is it a simple fat finger mistake or a manipulation of the price dump in order to succeed its sell position in BitMex? Both exchanges are investigating and hopefully reveal the answer soon. To be honest, I tend to believe it's later. Who would want to sell any of their holdings under the market price when they could have had made a lot more money? Even if the price was entered mistakenly, all the exchange has the alert function to tell you that your price is lower than current market price and ask you to re confirm. Unless you are really in a rush and new crypto, you won't make this kind of silly mistake. This is why I incline to believe that it's the 2nd scenario.
If it's simply a fat finger mistake, then not sure if Bitstamp is going to reverse the transaction as Gemini did back in 2015. But if it's a manipulation to be beneficial from sell position in BitMex, not sure what BitMex will do? Traders would be happy to see that the transactions be reversed. But shouldn't BitMex reevaluate their price index to include more exchanges?
If Bitcoin can be manipulated, what else can't?