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Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

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Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#21
post #4

Bitcoin topped out as soon as the futures went live. Massive contango on a regulated futures market may have been a factor in "reeling in" price. The spot market is so thin that it didn't seem to take much open interest in the futs to whip the underlying. It's conceivable that some spot exchanges are or were still from 2017 to now, either malicious and/or incompetent, which would facilitate the continuation of such b…

since the futures are cash settled, is it really possible for there to be such a tight correlation? also, I surmise that a major factor in the correction we've witnessed in the past month or so has been the congested mempool (high fees and slow tx times).

Yes, the futures price settles daily based on the reference rate. Eventually such correlations become more efficient once you have a real market. (As another poster pointed out it's still thin).

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#22

People do not realize how manipulated the traditional financial markets are otherwise known as Wall Street. Cryptocurrency is less manipulated as it's run by a different culture of people.

Do we really know anything siginficant about the extent of the players in the cryptocurrency marketplace to know if the statement "cryptocurrency is less manipulated" is true or not? We don't even know who created it in the first place!

I thought the general assumption is that there's a lot of "unknown unknowns"? Am I wrong?

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#23
Wow, this paper's conclusion is delayed by 3 years. Willy and Markus bots are old news for anyone who has been following bitcoin closely. The source of all these allegations was this blog appearing in 2014:

https://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-repor...

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#25

Explains a lot. A casual review of many coin price histories gives you the sense that something might be "off," although that is just my subjective view. Another one: coins in general would have been far better off without this current pricing bubble.

It’s similar to 1999 dotcom run up, there will be a crash to remove all the bad actors (like the former pets.com), but it won’t kill cryptocoins just like the dotcom crash didn’t kill ecommerce.

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#26
Study: Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem

Citation: Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore, Tali Oberman, Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem, Journal of Monetary Economics (2017)

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.12.004

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.12.004

Abstract: To its proponents, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin offers the potential to disrupt payment systems and traditional currencies. It has also been subject to security breaches and wild price fluctuations. This paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the Mt. Gox Bitcoin currency exchange, in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188 million were fraudulently acquired. During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity. Based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks, the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the USD-BTC exchange rate in late 2013, when the rate jumped from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months.

Highlights:

• Suspicious trades on a Bitcoin currency exchange are linked to rises in the exchange rate.

• A single actor likely drove the USD/BTC exchange rate from $150 to $1000 in 2 months.

• Trading volume on all exchanges increased greatly on days with suspicious activity.

• Unregulated cryptocurrency markets remain vulnerable to manipulation today.

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#27
post #4

Bitcoin topped out as soon as the futures went live. Massive contango on a regulated futures market may have been a factor in "reeling in" price. The spot market is so thin that it didn't seem to take much open interest in the futs to whip the underlying. It's conceivable that some spot exchanges are or were still from 2017 to now, either malicious and/or incompetent, which would facilitate the continuation of such b…

Yeah, the futures markets seriously reduced volatility and kept the price within a narrow band around $14k. I'm quite pleased by this, actually.

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#28
post #14

People do not realize how manipulated the traditional financial markets are otherwise known as Wall Street. Cryptocurrency is less manipulated as it's run by a different culture of people.

It's not technically incorrect to say there is manipulation in the US markets, but comparing bitcoin exchanges to US exchanges is a bit laughable. The US Federal Reserve has (had) what amount(ed) to a printing press, associated with "working groups" a.k.a. PPT. However, major US exchanges themselves, whether stock, futures, etc., are far more regulated and mature compared to a bitcoin exchange. The manipulation to wh…

Lets talk about QE-1-4, the printing of money and bankers being bailed out. Your argument does not stand by any measure of reason or logic. Lets also talk about investment bankers and VC's who are completely being disrupted.

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#29

Wow, this paper's conclusion is delayed by 3 years. Willy and Markus bots are old news for anyone who has been following bitcoin closely. The source of all these allegations was this blog appearing in 2014: https://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-repor...

Any recent manipulations ? especially in 2017 end ?

Re: Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

#30
post #14

People do not realize how manipulated the traditional financial markets are otherwise known as Wall Street. Cryptocurrency is less manipulated as it's run by a different culture of people.

It's not technically incorrect to say there is manipulation in the US markets, but comparing bitcoin exchanges to US exchanges is a bit laughable. The US Federal Reserve has (had) what amount(ed) to a printing press, associated with "working groups" a.k.a. PPT. However, major US exchanges themselves, whether stock, futures, etc., are far more regulated and mature compared to a bitcoin exchange. The manipulation to wh…

Its been a while since I've seen someone refer to the PPT. For those unfamiliar with the abbreviation PPT stands for the Plunge Protection Team[0].

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/plunge-protection-team....

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