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An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

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Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#311

Post by keymone »

mwattsun wrote: post #238
keymone wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

guess what, satoshi made some prescient decisions designing bitcoin, with such level of complexity, that you in 2022 still don't understand them. to be fair, the (briefly) richest person in the world doesn't either.

I just started studying the topic. I also don't know how to do brain surgery, but I'm confident with enough schooling and study I could do it. With Bitcoin I don't need satoshi level understanding, I just need to know enough to either make a little money or avoid it altogether, kind of like I don't need to be a master chef to enjoy a great meal. I just need to know enough about cuisine and my likes to pick out a nice…

> I just need to know enough to either make a little money or avoid it altogether

fundamental value doesn't matter for short term speculative trading. if you're coming at it from this angle - chance that you'll learn anything about fundamental value of bitcoin is quite low.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#312

Post by lvl100 »

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…

This has to be one of the best comments I’ve read on HN.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#313

Post by notch656a »

preseinger wrote: post #304
notch656a wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I see, it's not manipulation because you perceive the fed as acting virtuously. That's actually not the mandate of the fed. The mandate is: The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of…

I, an anonymous actor beholden to no authority nor regulation, can manipulate Bitcoin _directly_ with sufficient capital and a sufficiently intelligent bit of code. It's fun and intellectually pointed to say this is just a _version_ of the kind of "manipulation" performed by the Fed against the dollar but it's transparently and categorically a different thing. It's an obviously specious argument and it diminishes who…

>I, an anonymous actor beholden to no authority nor regulation, can manipulate Bitcoin

Yes yes we already agreed, I think, that bitcoin can be manipulated. I admitted this right off the bat.

>It's fun and intellectually pointed to say this is just a _version_ of the kind of "manipulation" performed by the Fed against the dollar but it's transparently and categorically a different thing. It's an obviously specious argument and it diminishes whomever makes it.

So it diminishes no one, because I never said the manipulation performed by the fed was the same 'version' or 'kind' of manipulation -- whatever that means. Are you just kind of arguing with yourself at this point?

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#314

Post by BLKNSLVR »

Ekaros wrote: post #290
mtremsal wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inflation is a highly regressive tax Is it? I think a takeaway from Piketty's book was that inflation was one of the rare factors that slowed down or reversed wealth inequality. Intuitively it would make sense that people drowning in debt benefit from (moderate) inflation, especially if low wages get bumped in the process.

And if you think really. The poor who live from hand-to-mouth, do they really care about inflation as long as wages keep going up with it. It is not like they even aim to save anything. So prices going up if also their wages do have really net zero effect for them.

When do wages ever keep up with inflation? Wages are equivalent to a lagging indicator.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#316

Post by jazzyjackson »

dadoge wrote: post #117
cuteboy19 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

mining rewards in the form of new supply is not the only way miners make money - they are the house because they take a cut of every transaction. admittedly I don't know the ratio, and I've always been puzzled by the end game - will fees continue to rise as the difficulty ratchets up such that the only incentive to mine is transaction fees? Anyway they can keep winning regardless of price volatility.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#317

Post by mwattsun »

keymone wrote: post #311
mwattsun wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started studying the topic. I also don't know how to do brain surgery, but I'm confident with enough schooling and study I could do it. With Bitcoin I don't need satoshi level understanding, I just need to know enough to either make a little money or avoid it altogether, kind of like I don't need to be a master chef to enjoy a great meal. I just need to know enough about cuisine and my likes to pick out a nice…

> I just need to know enough to either make a little money or avoid it altogether fundamental value doesn't matter for short term speculative trading. if you're coming at it from this angle - chance that you'll learn anything about fundamental value of bitcoin is quite low.

> fundamental value doesn't matter for short term speculative trading

Agreed, but gambling is not my gig. I don't live that far from Las Vegas if I so prefer. I think smart contracts are interesting because I'm a programmer. Someone once wrote that Bitcoin also has executable code so that's on my list to investigate. It's something to do in retirement. I wish Elon Musk well, but he's only human, so I don't expect him to have investigated in depth every thing he talks about. He forms half-assed opinions just like the rest of us.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#318

Post by wallacoloo »

majormajor wrote: post #309
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…

> What’s a share of SNAP entitle you to exactly? Ah right, you think someone will buy it for more. Ultimately you think someone will pay more for a future share of SNAP than of [OTHER THING] because you think SNAP's growth story is better, business model is promising, blah blah blah. We may be trading on the derivatives of the fundamentals, or even the hope of future fundamentals, but even that's turning back some as…

> why pay the huge transaction costs and help the current crypto-rich get richer, instead of making purpose-built chains for your future applications?

the most convincing arguments i’ve heard for reusing an existing chain is 1) easier access to users, 2) easier to deploy and 3) if your application needs decentralization, a mature blockchain will be more secure (attacks like 51% attacks have higher cost) and reliable (in the uptime sense) than something you can deploy yourself.

> There's vague talk about "the backbone of future banking systems" or such for crypto as having similar fundamental value

another argument is that many cryptos are valuable because of “regulatory arbitrage”. bitcoin/monero/zcash are all easy ways to (partially) shelter your money from tax and legal regulations (hence why they are/were largely associated with drugs).

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#319

Post by giaour »

joering2 wrote: post #254
largbae wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing fiat currencies have that is underrated: a legal system to handle special cases. Recently, an apparently Bitcoin-rich man named Mircea Propescu died without sharing his private key(s). Now that fortune is gone with no recourse for next of kin. Maybe this is OK and everyone is happy to lose the safety net. But what about fraud? Do you want to have to take up arms to get your money back from someone who stole…

For a starters, its not Bitcoin fault that someone did not have last will, or did not include the keys or their crypto in the last will. Second, when some large heist in the past happened on the chain, the largest exchanges announced they won't exchange proceeds from these addresses. It may still not be impossible to withdraw into fiat, but certainly it was harder. Eventually, there will be more regulation from US an…

> For a starters, its not Bitcoin fault that someone did not have last will, or did not include the keys or their crypto in the last will.

Since we can assume that some people will die without making arrangements to pass on their keys, then isn't it guaranteed that a non-inflationary cryptocurrency like BTC would eventually consist solely of lost, unreachable coins?

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#320

Post by largbae »

joering2 wrote: post #254
largbae wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing fiat currencies have that is underrated: a legal system to handle special cases. Recently, an apparently Bitcoin-rich man named Mircea Propescu died without sharing his private key(s). Now that fortune is gone with no recourse for next of kin. Maybe this is OK and everyone is happy to lose the safety net. But what about fraud? Do you want to have to take up arms to get your money back from someone who stole…

For a starters, its not Bitcoin fault that someone did not have last will, or did not include the keys or their crypto in the last will. Second, when some large heist in the past happened on the chain, the largest exchanges announced they won't exchange proceeds from these addresses. It may still not be impossible to withdraw into fiat, but certainly it was harder. Eventually, there will be more regulation from US an…

I think what you're describing is a centralized body that can use due process to resolve disputes. 4 legs good 2 legs better?
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