An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation • Hacker News Board

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#91

Post by dadoge » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

epinephrinios wrote: post #70

paulpauper wrote: post #26

The price is nothing but down, down, down. it is not manipulation but just ppl dumping at every opportunity, like bank stocks in 2007-2008 or dotcom stocks in 2000-2002. Would not want to own this.

It's "down, down, down" only if you entered at a very high price: https://athcoinindex.com/coin/bitcoin As the great Andreas Antonopoulos said, everyone gets the Bitcoin price they deserve.

Slight correction:

It’s down down down if you entered at a high price AND sold within 3yrs

No one who held BTC for 3-4 yrs straight has lost money on their investment throughout the entire history of BTC

There will be a point in time where this won’t be true anymore, but I think we are far from it

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#92

Post by SilasX » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

vageli wrote: post #78

SilasX wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Bitcoin options on e.g. LedgerX.com are securities (edit: regulated ones, that is), and anything that affects Bitcoin’s price is going to affect those derivatives’ prices.

> But Bitcoin options on e.g. LedgerX.com are securities (edit: regulated ones, that is), and anything that affects Bitcoin’s price is going to affect those derivatives’ prices. But the SEC doesn't regulate mortgages even though there are derivative securities that are regulated. SEC regulates the asset backed securities but not the assets underlying those securities.

The question was whether the SEC would have jurisdiction. The manipulation affects securities that the SEC would have jurisdiction over, so it would follow that they do.

If not, it would be a pretty gaping hole in their mandate: "It's fine to manipulate X and profit from that, but not to profit from the regulated derivatives that closely track X."

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#93

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

spoiler wrote: post #84

masona wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fine art market has been doing this for decades by using auction records to set prices.

You can't buy and sell the same item to yourself at an auction multiple times... Or am I missing the point you're trying to make? Also, the value is in the art, not the receipt. With NFT, that's not the case... Unless it's an exchangeable NFT, like one you can exchange for a service (e.g. as a tick) or some goods, but that's not really how NFTs are being used.

> You can't buy and sell the same item to yourself at an auction multiple times

You don't have to; you get someone else to buy it, hold onto it for a few years, then sell it again on a different auction. It doesn't have to be short-term.

> Also, the value is in the art, not the receipt.

I would argue the value is not in the art in real life either, that is, it's not the artwork itself, but the 'object', its history, what people have paid for it in the past and how it increased in value over time. The main thing is that it has to be rare or one of a kind.

I mean more understandable is expensive, collectable whiskeys. They make a limited batch, say 100 bottles, sell it for $100 each. Ten years later, 90% of those bottles have been opened and drank, another 10% of the remainder was lost or broken, leaving you with nine bottles of a once-and-never-again rare batch. Collectors will pay more for it.

Anyway, NFT's, like cryptocurrencies, are investment products whose value is determined entirely by whatever a buyer pays for it.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#94

Post by benreesman » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

Eh 20-ish years ago the shit happening on Island and Archipelago would blow most people’s minds. Undocumented, conditional, non-displayed order types. Routine wash trading. Shear-but-don’t skin multi-venue arbitrage. The ECNs were the Wild West. Smoke-filled dark pools.

Island and Arca are NASDAQ and NYSE now.

But Ben, US equities have intrinsic value unlike this BTC garbage! Well unless they pay no dividend, have dual-class share structure, and IPO without a profitable quarter. What’s a share of SNAP entitle you to exactly? Ah right, you think someone will buy it for more.

Crypto will have it’s 2001-style GC cycle, the useful stuff will stick around until Goldman owns it and the SEC makes a show of regulating it, the tulip garbage will wash out leaving behind a bunch of rich guys who are really annoying because they never built anything, and we’ll go back to arguing about programming languages.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#95

Post by rowathay » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

jimmydorry wrote: post #85

hnmullany wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's significant enough, the SEC will knock on your door when this happens in the regular market

I’m not aware of any pundits, that get on the TV to push agendas about stocks, getting in any trouble with the SEC. I’m not sure if it’s just because I have been looking closer recently, or had more time WFH, but the blatant manipulation on morning shows and financial segments is appalling. Things like saying a given pharmaceutical is headed for zero because their drug failed to get FDA approval, when actually the co…

Pardon my ignorance and/or naïveté, but are these real examples?

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#96

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #79

mbesto wrote: post #9

Curious - does anyone not think Bitcoin or any other cypto coin is being manipulated?

I don't think it's being manipulated in only one direction, does that count?

It does, I think, and you make a good point; there's big players who bet on it going down, there's big players that bet on it going up. In a perfect world, their intents would cancel each other out.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#97

Post by tarsinge » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

jondwillis wrote: post #55

wesapien wrote: post #52

Just anything you want to manipulate, you fake the news these days.

It’s not a new phenomenon.

It's a bit fuzzy but I remember a chapter in the Count of Monte Cristo where the Count bankrupt an enemy by bribing a telegraph agent to pass a false geopolitical (Spain?) report to cause market crash of bonds of that country and push his enemy to sell low.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#98

Post by mwattsun » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #72

mwattsun wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He knows more than I do, is surrounded by people smarter than I am and has a track record of success and overcoming failures. If I thought I shouldn't listen to Elon Musk because I thought I knew better, then I think my chances of understanding anything about this would be greatly diminished.

He has some amazing successes, but also has a terrible track record in terms of what he says vs what he actually delivers, he is more often way off the mark than he is accurate. https://www.elonmusk.today/

This is funny. He's a promoter and a salesman. I disagree with the tag line "Like Donald Trump, But For Nerds". Musk actually hires and surrounds himself with brilliant people, Trump not so much

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#99

Post by wonderwonder » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

mwattsun wrote: post #19

Hokusai wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Elon Musk a relevant opinion on this matter? Even worse, he is well known for astroturfing his own assets.

He knows more than I do, is surrounded by people smarter than I am and has a track record of success and overcoming failures. If I thought I shouldn't listen to Elon Musk because I thought I knew better, then I think my chances of understanding anything about this would be greatly diminished.

This is a terrible way to go through life. Just because someone is successful at X does not mean they are in any way knowledgeable in Y. Want to know about something, just read about it yourself or seek the opinion of someone that actually works in the field, don't blindly take the word of someone that is not even from the field in question.

Doge is a joke crypto currency, and I don't mean that as an insult I mean it was literally started as a joke by the developers to make fun of the crazy crypto speculation. Elon latched onto it as part of a joke and I think it just spiraled out of his control and he does not want to admit to being out of his league. He even alluded to this in his SNL skit.

Would you go to a world renown brain surgeon for advice on what is wrong with your car engine? Of course not but the brain surgeon is likely a very smart person surrounded by other very smart people. Car engines are just not their fields of expertise, much like cryptocurrencies are not Elon's. Elon is a meme lord, and goes to where the social media attention is. I am a huge fan of the guy but pretty much ignore everything he says outside of renewables and space because that's his wheel house. Don't get trapped in cults of personality.

Want to understand crypto, follow the people that are building in it. I recommend:

https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin https://twitter.com/aantonop

Someone that understands crypto second to none but acts like he does not while delivering incredible content: https://twitter.com/cobie

want someone smart that lives in the space that is anti - crypto: https://twitter.com/nntaleb

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#100

Post by mbesto » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #76

mbesto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, let's start by using a valid comparable. Fiat currency has the feature of "medium of exchange", at present BTC does not (technically it does but its adoption for exchange is abysmal). > So the real question is whether a coin is being manipulated, but what kind of manipulation you can accept. The NYSE is a better comparable. In the US we have the SEC which does regulate against market manipulation: https://en.w…

>First, let's start by using a valid comparable. Fiat currency has the feature of "medium of exchange", at present BTC does not (technically it does but its adoption for exchange is abysmal). You're changing the topic. You asked whether BTC was being manipulated, and were asked to compare to the US dollar. Whether the dollar is as "medium of exchange" has no bearing on that, you're just unhelpfully switching to an un…

> and were asked to compare to the US dollar.

The original blog article was about the BTC/USD market being manipulated; hence the title "Bitcoin price", in which "price" assumes you are converting one currency to another (in this case USD/BTC).

The person that replied to me asked "so what, every coin is being manipulated". If anything the replier was changing the topic. The assertion that the coin itself is being manipulated is irrelevant and a red herring. In the context of the US stock exchange the SEC defines manipulation as "transactions which create an artificial price or maintain an artificial price for a tradable security". This concept isn't even a concept when it comes to the value of the medium of exchange for a currency, hence why I posited "why is this even relevant"?