Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

singlelunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 454 posts

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#141

Post by throwhauser »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #123
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…

All I want to know is: will the annoying guy at my gym who put brags about putting all of his retirement into Bitcoin this summer provide me with some decent schadenfreude at some point?

A watched pot never boils.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#142

Post by pakitan »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #133
alecst wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> but there is no revenue for a digital currency Isn't there? Ethereum kind of has revenue in that transaction fees for smart contract execution are burned (effectively a stock buyback) It has around ~$19B in revenue extrapolated at the current rate (although it's issuing more than $20B a year for now, planning to reduce issuance some time later this year)

That's like MSFT issuing MicrosoftDollars to pay their dividents.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#143

Post by everfree »

mwattsun wrote: post #75
ceejayoz wrote: post #39

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. He's also got a track history of being massively wrong at times on things that aren't inside his wheelhouse, like confidently predicting the end of COVID by April 2020.

I'm not here to defend Elon Musk, but since he is tentatively experimenting with accepting crypto as payment for some of his products, I assume crypto is in his wheelhouse

That would be a wrong assumption, I believe.

You don't need to know much about crypto to be able to accept it.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#144

Post by benreesman »

pakitan wrote: post #142
shawabawa3 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there is no revenue for a digital currency Isn't there? Ethereum kind of has revenue in that transaction fees for smart contract execution are burned (effectively a stock buyback) It has around ~$19B in revenue extrapolated at the current rate (although it's issuing more than $20B a year for now, planning to reduce issuance some time later this year)

That's like MSFT issuing MicrosoftDollars to pay their dividents.

The MicrosoftDollars they issue to pay their employees seem to be getting them some talent!

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#145

Post by notch656a »

mbesto wrote: post #118
SilasX wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I knew when I bought crypto it was being manipulated. I don't give a fuck, I use it as a medium of exchange usually dumping it within a few minutes of buying it in order to buy some goods online to avoid credit card fees (precious metals).

It's true dollar is manipulated. It is true crypto is manipulated. It is true many people such as myself purely is it as a medium of exchange. Just like with dollars, I dump it as quickly as possible to buy physical assets or other investments, lest the government inflate my fiat or manipulators manipulate my crypto.

In short, currencies are usually bad choice for store of value. Fed intentionally destroys USD by target of 2% a year to intentionally sabotage store of value.

Back to the point. Pretty much all coins are manipulated. Even commodity money. Best to avoid regulation so government's hand is out of the pot. Also I recommend people not use crypto as investment, that is probably not smart idea to consider long chain of cryptographic signatures and hashes as a large portion of investment on your future. Or piece of paper with a president and a number on it on it either.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#146

Post by md_ »

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…

> A counterpoint would be that what some call the intrinsic value is the expected future share price based on expected future revenues.

Sure, but plenty of tech companies have never paid dividends and never will. FB's shareholders would have legal claim to a portion of: a) a buyout (but nobody could afford to take FB private), b) a liquidation (so, you're buying in in case FB goes bankrupt), or c) future dividends (but FB's boy-king privileged stockholder doesn't want to pay dividends)...

Which I think was Ben's point.

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#147

Post by benreesman »

cillian64 wrote: post #137
dheera wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 think of it like this. If you suddenly owned 100% of Bitcoin, then you wouldn’t actually have anything valuable - nobody would buy it off you. If you suddenly owned 100% of Tesla then you’d be able to extract a lot of value.

I’ll start the bidding at 1 USD to own all BTC. Anyone want to go higher?

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#148

Post by upsidesinclude »

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…

Right, because cash has never afforded anonymity... always good enough for the government agencies. This is an entirely boring and tired trope. How about the simple ability to transfer value across international borders, free of extraneous % fees imposed by unnecessary middlemen? That alone is enough of a use case to justify adoption. Banks have reaped rewards unearned for long enough. Those capable and responsible enough to manage their affairs can do so

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#149

Post by gfd »

Dumb question, but is price manipulation wrong when it's for something that doesn't have a "true" price?

Like I get why it should be illegal for stocks. If you pump it and the price reverts back to some true price (calculated from expected future earnings or whatever), then people who bought it expecting it to be at an efficient price will lose money.

In the case of crypto where everything is driven by supply and demand only, who loses?

Re: An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation

#150

Post by benreesman »

ckastner wrote: post #136
wpietri wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly appreciate your experience and cynicism here. People who haven't worked in financial markets have a hard time appreciating how deep the muck can get. Which makes them especially valuable suckers for the unregulated markets.

> People who haven't worked in financial markets have a hard time appreciating how deep the muck can get. That's the main reason why I find the battle cry of "decentralization" so comically ironic. No government can control crypto, how awesome and empowering! When the truth is that the vast amount of control that we've seen develop in the past century (and especially in the past two decades) were just to protect peop…

You have a lot more faith in the IPO underwriting process than I do. They don’t call it a “pop” for nothing.
Post reply on HN