A dumping may occur when the market is spooked by outside factors such as economic turmoil in global markets, or even as a response to a particular news story.
Examples over the years have been the result of several factors. For instance, on the rare occasion when Bitcoin approaches a halving, the market can see great volatility that has historically been the trigger point for a dumping.
More notably, a dumping is likely when a cryptocurrency’s price repeatedly meets a point of resistance. Take May 2018, for example, when Bitcoin was in a robust period of upward movement to push it above the significant figure of $10,000. Again and again it bounced around the $10,100 mark, eventually nudging $10,200 where it hit a hard ceiling of rejection.
At this point, crypto whales —investors with unusually large amounts of coins — triggered a sell-off just under the $10,000 mark. This saw the value of the world’s most well-known cryptocurrency plummet in a matter of minutes.
It is likely those whales then re-entered the market to buy up more Bitcoin at a massively deflated price, resulting in huge profits.