This article is less concrete than the Bloomberg TV coverage I saw sometime this last week that discussed the same theme/possibility of Bitcoin manipulation in recent weeks.
That coverage discussed that much of the pricing up-moves this past month are happening on weekends when there is less liquidity/action, and then saying some analysts see this as suggestive that some whale(s) are deliberately trying to push the price up (using weekends to get the most oomph for their trading dollar.) There was also an assertion that the market volumes involved in bitcoin are substantially less than in other more traditional markets so the market is more susceptible to this sort of thing.
I have no knowledge of the truth of any of this, but there was a thread of a "fact" to that argument which I didn't notice in this Fortune article (so I pass it on.)
The low market cap of BTC, albeit some 100's of billions of $, compared to the huge indexes, of course makes price manipulation easier. But as a fan of the technology and future use cases for crypto in general, I do think most of the fluctuation in price is emotional moreso than anything else.
The central allegation is that Tether would print coins for themselves that were not backed by USD and then buy BTC. Thus, artificially propping up BTC in a price range where they could then quickly sell, pocket profits, and stor the money to back the Tether they just printed.
We know for sure that "bad behavior" is fairly common in this unregulated "marketplace". If it's easy and possible and profitable, someone is going to do it.
This alone is sufficient to deter a lot of sensible investors.
We're about to transition to digital currency/tokens. Lots of laundering happening. And Tax Season is upon us, which correlates with deflation in price. Yet, BTC is riding above 20K. This is artificial inflation of the price of BTC, no doubt.
gregw2|3 years ago
That coverage discussed that much of the pricing up-moves this past month are happening on weekends when there is less liquidity/action, and then saying some analysts see this as suggestive that some whale(s) are deliberately trying to push the price up (using weekends to get the most oomph for their trading dollar.) There was also an assertion that the market volumes involved in bitcoin are substantially less than in other more traditional markets so the market is more susceptible to this sort of thing.
I have no knowledge of the truth of any of this, but there was a thread of a "fact" to that argument which I didn't notice in this Fortune article (so I pass it on.)
andirk|3 years ago
ploum|3 years ago
Isn’t that the definition of a market?
Could you imagine an alternative where this does not happen?
new2this|3 years ago
qeternity|3 years ago
logicalmonster|3 years ago
Nobody knows anything for sure.
People who like Bitcoin will deny this.
People who hate Bitcoin will use this as confirmation bias.
/thread
jqpabc123|3 years ago
We know for sure that "bad behavior" is fairly common in this unregulated "marketplace". If it's easy and possible and profitable, someone is going to do it.
This alone is sufficient to deter a lot of sensible investors.
muted_sorts|3 years ago
sebastien_b|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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