Is Bitcoin Price Easily Manipulated? One "move" by Cristiano Ronaldo evaporates $4 billion from Coca-Cola's market value

Bitcoin has experienced significant volatility this year due to Tesla's adoption or rejection, as well as Elon Musk's occasional cryptic tweets. Questions about whether Bitcoin is "mature enough" and "easily manipulated" are being raised once again. However, in reality, traditional assets such as Coca-Cola stocks can also see a $4 billion market value evaporate overnight due to an inadvertent action by a celebrity.

Cristiano Ronaldo's "one move"

It's been a few days since the incident at the Euro 2020 football tournament press conference on 6/14. Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, during the pre-match press conference against Hungary, moved the two bottles of Coca-Cola in front of him off-camera, lifted a bottle of mineral water, and shouted in Portuguese for everyone to drink more water.

This action was widely interpreted as implying that drinking Coca-Cola is not healthy. The market reacted immediately, with Coca-Cola's stock, with the ticker symbol KO, dropping from $56.17 the previous day to $55.24, a decrease of 1.78%, resulting in a market value loss of approximately $4 billion.

Coca-Cola is an official sponsor of the Euro tournament, and to make matters worse, Ronaldo's actions prompted other players to follow suit. Martin Kallen, the tournament director of the Euro Cup, expressed helplessness, stating that he has communicated with all teams regarding this matter and that similar incidents will result in fines to players through their national associations because the income from sponsors deeply affects the tournament and European football.

Cryptocurrency Volatility Remains High

Compared to traditional assets, the volatility of cryptocurrencies is more pronounced. Rug Pulls and direct drops to zero are common occurrences. However, events like the Coca-Cola incident seem not to label traditional assets as "easily manipulated" by the public.

In the following days, Coca-Cola's stock continued to be affected by the unexpected early hike in interest rates, dropping all the way to $53.73, returning to mid-May levels.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has a more objective view on market manipulation. In a previous interview with CNBC, when asked about Elon Musk hosting "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) because the public speculated that Musk would mention Dogecoin again on the show.

He repeatedly emphasized that regulations must evolve with the times and cited himself as an example, suggesting that the content of his interviews may have already been recorded by emotion analysis software, causing fluctuations in certain assets. Regulators' task is to improve regulations to prevent the public from being manipulated by social media and other information sources.