‘Fake News’ made by ‘Walter Bloomberg’ used to only move crypto, now it moves stock markets as well

Deepfake photos and fake news that can move crypto markets in seconds is nothing new, but if that also starts to happen to global stock exchanges, then something is seriously off.

In 2023, fake news was spread on social media that had a serious impact on the price of Bitcoin and the stock exchanges. Now, in 2025, the same thing is happening again, but this time the impact is much greater.

Pentagon

Back in May of 2023, a few crypto accounts on Twitter (currently known as X) managed to briefly raise stock markets with an AI photo showing an attack on the Pentagon. Bitcoin plummeted, as did the technology exchange Nasdaq. The market recovered fairly quickly, and crypto fans were blamed.

Popular poster CryptoKaleo showed a photo of the tweet that spread the fake news. The culprit had appropriated the moniker ‘Walter Bloomberg’.

An AI image of an explosion near the Pentagon caused the market to sell off violently for a few minutes before it was debunked and removed.

Run it back. pic.twitter.com/xP82HCBmys

— K A L E O (@CryptoKaleo) May 22, 2023

In December of 2023, just a few weeks before BlackRock would announce that it had received approval for a Bitcoin ETF, there was another fake news story. Someone claimed that approval was imminent, after which the price of Bitcoin rose by $2,000 in a few hours. The message was then labelled as ‘fake news’ and the price dropped again. A few weeks later, the expected approval of that Bitcoin ETF finally came.

This time, in April of 2025, there was another ‘fake news’ story with a big impact, both on Bitcoin and the stock markets (but mainly on the stock markets). It was again ‘Walter Bloomberg’, a twitter account that simply sends out news headlines, that spread the news.

Pause

Last Monday all stock markets were very volatile, after the very big losses in Asia also Europe fell down quickly. After the American stock markets had opened negatively a message appeared on Walter’s Twitter feed. According to him, there would be a pause of 90 days in the import tariffs of Trump. The news spread like wildfire.

Twitter user makes initial claim abt Trump considering 90-day pause, Walter Bloomberg (unrelated to “The” Bloomberg) follows suit and his tweet goes viral.

Market responds w/an 8% surge and, in a matter of seconds, dips 3.5% after WH confirms the story is fake news

What a day! pic.twitter.com/hAsvyBZqFF

— Melik Abdul (@MelikAbdul_) April 7, 2025

Bitcoin and the stock markets immediately rose, a 4% drop for some stocks became a 4% gain. Millions of dollars changed hands because of that one fake news message.

A little later, the White House labeled the message as ‘fake news’ and the market fell again. ‘Walter Bloomberg’ used to only make the price of Bitcoin rise and fall, now also that of the American stock markets.