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An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

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Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#111

Post by benreesman »

dheera wrote: post #108
benreesman wrote: post #94

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 du…

> US equities have intrinsic value Really? My impression is that many US equities in 2022 are more like Reddit up/downvote scores than a reflection of intrinsic value. Which isn't a bad thing in my opinion, by the way.

I mean if they pay a dividend (and you believe it will continue) you can do math that treats it like a bond coupon and do a present-day valuation.

If they have attached voting rights you can get together with other investors and vote yourself a bigger dividend (though same goes for Uniswap v2), or a share buyback.

But yeah, mostly it’s a Keynsian Beauty Contest.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#112

Post by cuteboy19 »

dadoge wrote: post #110
cuteboy19 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

70% of people who bought Bitcoin bought it in the past year. With these statistics, it is very likely that more people lost money through Bitcoin than gained it. Someone has to pay for all the Bitcoin mining around the world, so it's probable that Bitcoin as a whole is net negative. That is, the average investor loses money on Bitcoin.

What about anyone who fully understood its value proposition and held for a 3-4 yr timeframe? EDIT: let’s check back in in 1-3 yrs here and see if people who bought last year and held are doing :-)

I'm sure such people exist, its just that there are probably more losers than winners in this net negative game.

Analogously, there are some people who have won a lot of money from casinos but the average gambler loses money because the house always wins. Miners are 'the house' for this analogy

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#113

Post by alecst »

benreesman wrote: post #94

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 du…

A counterpoint would be that what some call the intrinsic value is the expected future share price based on expected future revenues. There might or might not be future revenue for SNAP, but there is no revenue for a digital currency.

But I do think digital currency has intrinsic value, in that for now, it affords you anonymity to commit crimes in a way that ordinary currency does not. I’m not happy about it, but this is a form of value.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#114

Post by benreesman »

alecst wrote: post #113
benreesman wrote: post #94

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 du…

A counterpoint would be that what some call the intrinsic value is the expected future share price based on expected future revenues. There might or might not be future revenue for SNAP, but there is no revenue for a digital currency. But I do think digital currency has intrinsic value, in that for now, it affords you anonymity to commit crimes in a way that ordinary currency does not. I’m not happy about it, but thi…

FTX claims they buyback FTT based on financial results. Their business model has more historical precedent than e.g. Uber’s (and is arguably less legally grey).

What difference am I missing?

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#115

Post by vmception »

SilasX wrote: post #33
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a security, my friend. Crypto is the land of no rules and caveat emptor.

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.

They're regulated by the CFTC which also does not use the Securities Act

The CFTC literally just got a fraud statute in 2010

They mostly follow their earlier mandate and the new mandate doesn’t alter it too much

Trying to apply it to spot assets just because a derivative market is affected requires a huge stretch and risk of getting the agency embarrassed and curb stomped in the courts

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#116

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#117

Post by dadoge »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #112
dadoge wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about anyone who fully understood its value proposition and held for a 3-4 yr timeframe? EDIT: let’s check back in in 1-3 yrs here and see if people who bought last year and held are doing :-)

I'm sure such people exist, its just that there are probably more losers than winners in this net negative game. Analogously, there are some people who have won a lot of money from casinos but the average gambler loses money because the house always wins. Miners are 'the house' for this analogy

I don’t buy that analogy one bit.

BTC supply is growing at a rate of less than 2% now. 90% of the supply is already mined.

Miners play a very small role now in getting new supply

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#118

Post by mbesto »

SilasX wrote: post #104
mbesto wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 man…

You're claiming the dollar can't be manipulated and/or no one is allowed to care about it, because one agency doesn't have jurisdiction over said manipulation?

No, I'm not claiming anything about a currency being manipulated. I'm saying the idea that a currency in and of itself is being manipulated is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Currency manipulation, in the context of the OP's discussion, implies one currencies relation to another one, in this case USD and BTC.

Federal interest rates affecting the value of your dollar making purchases for goods and services is completely irrelevant.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#119

Post by yunohn »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #93
spoiler wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> It doesn't have to be short-term.

This is actually a really important nuance. NFTs/crypto have a really short turnaround time - which means they can run the scam much quicker and at massive scale.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#120

Post by vmception »

adrianN wrote: post #16
noja wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not [...] illegal Errr - what? I think you'll find that market manipulation is prohibited in the US under Section 9(a)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and in the EU under article 12 of the Market Abuse Regulation (etc.) The US Securities Exchange Act defines market manipulation as "transactions which create an artificial price or maintain an artificial price for a tradable security". See https://en.…

Is Bitcoin already classified as a tradable security or is it still Monopoly money?

False dilemma

Products are regulated by the FTC

Commodities and currency derivatives that are traded are regulated by the CFTC

Securities issuance and securities trading are regulated by the SEC

so have fun with the federal trade commission rawr big teeth over there /s

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