Bitcoin Forum

as mentioned above, i have heard of people able to push up the price with their own btc stash, any clue how to do this and how much capital you would need

The most you can make. Walls get bigger and bigger... The more you have the better. There is no fixed number. You can push the market with more or less Bitcoins, dependeing on the current volume.

Giving a shot at a certain number, I'd say 5000+ BTC

wow. stupid question: is it a good idea to take part in this or is it frowned upon

It's not illegal in this market and it's considered a fact of life now.

Do you know what your doing?  If you don't know how or why whales do what they do, it is probably best to not participate and HODL your coins.

agreed.

you would have better luck starting your own exchange in some unregulated region like Romania and then inserting some thing like a willy bot.

fortunately most people have more to gain by being honest. Falsely inflated BTC valuation isn't good for anyone, long term. just makes BTC look shady

probably in the range of early adopters, unless you are willing to manipulate exchange with small volume, if you really want to manipulate some markets it's better to focus your attention on altcoin

they are so tiny that everyone here, can manipulate some of them

You do whatever you want. That's the good part on Bitcoin markets. The bad part are some people who participate in it :D

And also, as said, the number of bitcoins needed to change a market varies a lot, according to volume and to the website you're using for trading...

It is not frowned upon. A whale makes some action and oportunities for everyone else.

It depends on how much you want to move the market and you can see it for yourself. Go to bitcoinwisdom[1] and select Tools -> estimate trading. It allows you to enter the amount of BTC/USD you want to buy and how much it would currently change the price on that exchange. 5000 BTC would currently change the price by ~12% to 315 USD/BTC.


[1] e.g. for bitstamp https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd

I suppose that the price change would become a lot less in a matter of minutes, because of arbitrage with other exchanges. Moving price is costly, and almost useless, it's not like that if you are a whale you control the market, you only can inflence the spot price.

Everybody can be a whale with altcoins and experiment it.

It would have to be really high. My best guess is its over 9000.

https://i.imgur.com/ULhvrkx.png

Perhaps the OP means how much to be a whale in view of an alt coin? In that case, I'd say it's far less than 5000 Bitcoins depending on the market cap of the coin in question.

i was referring to both alt coins and btc :D what percentage of a total alt coin should i have to make a difference

Morelike a thousand IMO or someone that able to move the graph for bitcoin's value ,significantly.
But this statement , "becoming a whale" is relative subject because many people measure "how big" in different values.

as much as you can..
more than 10.000 BTC may be. mould a coins everyday and never sleep...

I would say 200 BTC for a baby orca whale, and 1,000 BTC for a full adult sperm whale.  

Moving 200 BTC on a slow day raises eyebrows and can pop BTC $1 USD in either direction.  :o

Seriously!!!!
I would love to do that.
Can you please tell me the way to manipulate the altcoin market.

Simple, just have at least 1/4 of the total BTC's on the buy order and you'll have a decent % of control to play with and try to influence people into falling for your fake orders and potentially great buy and panic sells. It takes a lot of time and skill tho, few can pull it. I wish I had that kind of BTC but I dont.

A whale does not imply cornering a market. If you don't know what you are doing, the "whale" status can go away very fast.

To create a panic driven FOMO event;
1) quietly and slowly buy what you want to hold for the trip.
2) place bids to create the appearance of support, thereby making others trust that they won't get burned if they buy at whatever level.
3) well placed market orders can do a lot, but again, it must be believable or the sellers will just push it right back to where it started. Then you are no better off and have more coins that are not in the profit zone.
4) grasp any straw you can find and spoon feed it to the community. These "fundamentals" should be mewn worthy.
5) follow the price with bids at a safe distance being sure to not actually buy more than you desire or are able to dump when the time is right.
6) every so often, throw out a market sell to gauge the jumpiness of the market. When price action is so weak that bids don't fill right back to the original spot, wait a little longer and...
7) DUMP

Additional steps that can be taken;
8 ) Rinse
9) Repeat
10) Profit

In other words, you don't really know if it is possible because you have never done it. You have just heard anonymous strangers saying that it can be done.



Buy high, sell low?

Simply slowly buy all franko or lottocoin or whatever on the market, meanwhile open multiple threads around Internet stating some shit about your chosen coin, stating that island is going to adopt it  as main currency or whatever. Show the price increase you create as a proof of wall street heavily buying your asset.
Later, watch the newcomers arrive and buy at whatever price. Constantly push up the bids with fake orders.
After the price have increased 10%, or what your goal is, with sufficient real bids....cancel orders and dump  :)

As simple as that.

Just more than what is listed on buying or selling list.

You cant become a bitcoin whale and move the btc markets anymore.
You can try to move alt markets though if you have enough btc and know what your doing.

Is this OP even serious? Listen dude. You cant become a btc whale, and you can try to be a whale in the alt game but if you swim up the wrong stream you'll be swimming back home broke feeling like a tadpole.

#JustFacts

Peasant 1: We have found a whale. May we burn him?

Knight: How do you know he is a whale?

Peasant 1: He talks like one!

Knight: Bring him forward

RyNinDaCleM: I'm not a whale! I'm not a whale!

Knight, to the peasants: What makes you think he is a whale?

Peasant 2: Well, he made me lose all my money!

Knight, looking at bags of money held by peasant 2: (awkward silence)

Peasant: I got better...

Peasants, chanting: Burn him anyway! BURN! BURN! BURN HIM!

any you can suggest?

Franko would be great for playing :)
https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/FRK_BTC

If you dream of becoming a whale, I recommend you to go to UniCoin. This coin has 1 BTC marketcap. If you invest 0.2 BTC in this coin, be sure you`ll become a mega whale  :D

Daily trading volume is also involved in choosing an altcoin and not just market cap.
If a coin have daily trading volume less than 0.1btc then it is a dead coin.

I just had a play around with the "Estimate Trading" function in BitcoinWisdom, and put various numbers in there, and it looks like the difference that could be made to the market after fees might be enough to buy a newspaper and cup of coffee even if successful.

I think you'd need to team up with a lot of other people to do it, but even then, who are you going to buy/sell to/from when you want to close the position?

being a wannabe whale of some sort of worthless altcoin won't do much for you. coins with a market cap of 1 btc are left for dead.

this is one of the questions where if you need to ask, you dont have enough.

You can't realistically become a whale in Bitcoin at this point unless you are already rich, but you can control almost any alt market with 100 BTC.

no harm in asking :)

It's easy to guesstimate how much BTC you need to move a market. Look at the list here:

http://coinmarketcap.com/

order marketcap from more to less and show it in BTC instead of USD or any other FIAT.
There you go, if you have at least half of the volume of the marketcap of a coin you are a huge whale on that particular market.
If you have 1/4 you are a considerable whale.
Anything less and it's a waste of time.

still requires a considerable investment :D
but thanks

wow well bitcoin having a market cap of 4billion has deterred many whales but for short term impact you only need a couple hundred btc mate :D

https://youtu.be/9sHPjhfBRwI?t=50s  :D

how much you say?

google the top richest addresses, and the lowest #`s will be around 2,000 btc.

Everyone else has way more then 2,000, but the 2,000 mark is a whale entry.

current rates, that translates to 560,000 esti.

Half a milli aint a whale.

Most "whales" get slaughtered. Just like most traders, they are quite bad at trading and eventually lose their whale status. There was a whale buying tens of thousands of coins in hidden bids at 250-255 on Bitfinex before the flash crash. Yeah, that guy got harpooned real bad.

Half a mill is the lowest whale. You can brush up on the richest address to the lowest, and the ones that still reach being a whale.

They have 2,000 btc. Type in the richest btc address and then see the lowest you`ll see the range.

1-2% of worth of whole of market .

I think it should be similar to being a millionaire or having assests towards that amount. Despite different metrics.

So the person who has like 1 mill worth, should be starting as a whale.

exactly what vegeta says.

you need over 9000 to be a qualified whale, and you have a huge amount like that, id say it helps to donate 1 btc for a decent charity.