Bitcoin Forum

I got the idea from another thread around here:

What would be the banksters best shot be to manipulate BTC as they please?

As I see it, there are no derivates on BTC. On the other hand, who stops me from giving out/selling a future myself on the price of BTC in 6 months?

Gold is hardcore manipulated, a big part of it is done with naked shorts. At least that's not possible with BTC, if I see it clearly.

The question is if we should be concerned about JP Morgan ever taking over BTC like they have taken over silver and gold and controlling it.

Exchanges can manipulate basically anything they want and you've got no protection if you leave your coins on one, at least until voting pools (http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/12/voting-pools-how-to-stop-plague-of.html) become feature that users demand from the exchanges.

Wall Street is getting involved in the exchange market, and as soon as they do be very, very careful. Keep as many of your bitcoins as possible in your own wallet and regularly withdraw your entire balance all at once just to make sure the exchange actually has them.

It's virtually guaranteed that they are going to play undisclosed fractional reserve games with customer deposits.

I suppose you are talking about fraught here, just altering something in the exchanges themselves, with the help of the owners of those exchanges.

I'm talking about one step less though, about illegal manipulation of price. We are seeing unbelievable amounts on naked shorts dropped on the gold market and it would be good to know if something comparable is possible with BTC.

How is Wall Street getting involved in the exchange market, btw?

There's nothing stopping this from happening right now. Mt Gox, Bitstamp, etc don't trade bitcoins on their order book - they trade database entries that represent bitcoins (and USD).

Any of them could trivially create as many database entries as they want to trade with and get away with it as long as not all their customers try to withdraw at the same time.

Wow, that's interesting!

But it still means the exchanges are the only ones who have the power to do that, right?

Why would all the customers withdrawing at once be a problem - is it because if they don't "have" BTCs, they don't have database entries representing BTCs either?

People who trade on exchanges tend to leave large balances sitting there for a long time. For an unscrupulous exchange operator this is the perfect opportunity to start playing fractional reserves.

Suppose you're an exchange operator and you notice that only 90% of the customer deposits never move (as in get withdrawn to an external bitcoin address). You could take half those deposits and do whatever with them (speculate on an other exchange, buy hookers and blow, anything) and your customers won't notice until too many of them try to withdraw and you don't have enough bitcoins any more to comply.

Maybe exchange which proves it holds all the deposited Bitcoins in some way starts operating and people will preffer this proven no fractional reserve exchange.

http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/12/voting-pools-how-to-stop-plague-of.html

Of course it is possible.  You can naked short anything, its normal shorts that are more difficult as it requires a third party to lend the underlying asset to be sold.  There are currently no derivatives in Bitcoin but there nothing but market appetite to stop them from coming along.  They fullfill a need and i expect alot of people wanting to capitalise on thier holdings in the future by writing options, rather than sell the bitcoins.

Can you clarify - how do I get naked shorts then? There has to be some minimum requirement, I can't just sit at home and draw them on paper for me to use.

Thanks for your explanations, I learned something there!

 ??? really?  At a minimum you need a contract to sell an asset in the future.  If the selling party doesn't hold the asset or an option on the asset to cover the trade, its naked.  If they have borrowed the asset or brought an option to cover, its not.  Maybe reading some material on how financial markets work would help, rather than conspiracy sites that say what they think JP Morgan is or isn't doing.

Well, I'm so glad I have you.

Of course, if their intent is pure manipulation, not necessarly for profit.

Why would the powers to be be unable to get profit out of their manipulation - please elaborate!

But the special club has the knowledge and the financial means to let things go a bit more its way...

 ;D well ... when i have 5 BTC in my wallet on my bitcoin-QT sofware ... it's not a database.

it's the real life.

bitcoin will survive again "massive selling" ... because people don't do this.
the industrial computing of traders do this.

Exactly.

Until you withdraw from an exchange to your own wallet you don't actually have bitcoins - you have some company's promise to give you bitcoins on demand.

It's far easier to break a promise than it is to break cryptography.

And all the withdrawal delays on Gox suggest that they are ALREADY using a large amount of fractional reserve.  It's a little foolish to think they're not.

OK, right ... if you use SEPA and "long and poor delay" to wire money.
That why i use the "more" fast method of virwox ... but restricted by fee and amount of money.

I was talking about bitcoins but I suppose fiat matters too, I guess.

Maybe they use some money but I think gox also had real problems with bank accounts all over the world.
Not defending them ofc! Only time will tell

Yes of course! No doubt about it. These manipulators are called whales as most of us already know. These whales are composed of the government and its affiliates, Banks (the Rothschilds and Rockefellers mainly), and all these other billionaires who could easily scoop up any coin they want! They are the masters of manipulation and they dictate the wave. All we can do is surf along with it...

Yes we have already seen many Chinese exchanges creating fake trade volume and manipulating bitcoin price.

Suppose if an exchange creates fake trade volumes and manipulate bitcoin price to increase more and if all investors create sell order at the same time,it would become a big trouble to the exchange as they were the one who created such fake entries and responsible for the price.They might not be able to process the sell order of their users which would create a bad reputation for their exchange.

I think we see a lot of market manipulation happened, because today, market conditions are very weak for crypto, Mt.Gox is one of the markets that get price manipulation, its trading volume suddenly rises high, and anyone can manipulate prices, whales, hacker.

and this manipulation greatly affects the market and the crypto value.

my experience for Altcoins is often manipulated but for Bitcoin I have not felt nay when manipulated.

unless I see the price at Bitfinex, the price of Bitcoin goes up sharply and prices go down dramatically.
all of it is needed with an average volume of 1000 Bitcoin, there may also be a price manipulation there. (but who knows)

Wall Street has safeguards against manipulations. Why would they risk losing the trust and confidence of investors? Bitcoin needs regulations to become mainstream and protect the investing public. From scammers, not governments. Only criminals and paranoid conspiracy theorists are afraid of governments.

if it can be manipulated I think there must be parties who benefit and there are also the disadvantaged, I think manipulation is a difficult thing to do because we know that we can not know for certain that the sale and purchase occurred

if the manipulators of the course too much drop the course, we will be able to talk about bitcoin to our children as a failed way to get rich and buy lambo. But seriously, the manipulation of the rate can really threaten the stability and faith in bitcoin, as a currency that can change something in the future

If they have borrowed property or given an option to cover, it's not. well ... when i have 5 BTC in my wallet on my bitcoin-QT software ... it's not a database. bitcoin will survive again "big sale" ... the computer industry's traders do this.

I think that bitcoin and crypto currency are even more manipulative than we can imagine

All the delays in withdrawals on Gox show that they are willing to use a large amount of staggered reserves. There is no doubt about that. These whales include the government and its affiliates, banks and all the other billionaires who can easily find any penny they want! All we can do is surf with it, which affects the market and the encryption value. Unless I see the price at Bitfinex, Bitcoin prices are going up sharply and prices have dropped dramatically.

I was reading a thread online weeks ago about how every industry have a certain group of influencing bodies who manipulate the prices of the market they belong to. This is true especially in industries that have really wealthy individuals be it government officials, billionaires or the like, these are the big sharks or whales that have their final say effect the way things are being done in these industries. So in bitcoin too, there are influencing bodies, market manipulators who own a very good number of bitcoin to their names. If they decide to stop circulation of bitcoin, they can very much do it with ease.

The Bitcoin price is determined by supply and demand, so it is quite obvious if someone has enough fiat, they can basically get in and buy a bunch of coins over a long period and then suddenly dump them on the market, to cause some panic on the markets. When the price drops down, they just buy back these coins at a lower price than what they acquired them.

It just needs to be pointed out that a whole lot of bitcoins is needed to do this and a lot of fiat money. This is normally not done by individuals, but rather a group of whales.  >:(

The source of manipulation is Fiat, bitcoin exchanges are more rational when there are supply and demand. Whereas fiat can be made at any time and can be used to manipulate the value of bitcoin.  :D

the cryptocurrency, which has a strong base while the same is manipulated by the fear of the people

That is why like banks if we have huge of amounts of money and we want to withdraw a large amount they would need weeks or even months to withdraw? Like exchange there are limits too. I thought we could withdraw any amount we want in the first place. If they play undisclosed and lose all of those amounts what could happen to our deposited assets on an exchange? Now I am starting to withdraw my assets and just keep em safe at my own wallet. These folks really know what to do with our money, it is really safer not to put it on exchange.

if bitcoin price is yes, but i think the bitcoin itself no.. exchanges and whales are the one manipulating the price..its difficult when whales start to play their money, small investors are the ones suffering

Everyone is aware of the fact that inside trading is seen as a crime in the regulated market, be it stock trading or metal or any other derivatives, but bitcoin  being a new market and there is no regulation regarding that, expect these sort of inside trading and other manipulation in the market by big shots or financial institutions who can shell out big amounts just for their benefit.

Although whales(those that purchase coins in huge quantity) can have an effect on the prices of coins they hold. External bodies can't manipulate it the way Wall Street is

It is already being manipulated by whales, media FUDs, where there is market there is manipulation.

Well i kinda agree with you there since it's not a question of "could it be manipulated" anymore. Manipulation is happening and we're at times at the mercy of the whims of big players. You just have to learn how to ride these manipulations and make profits when these whales do.

Btc cant be manipulated like wall street the reason is bitcoin is decentralized and transparent it cant be manipulated like other stocks

Being decentralized does not means that it cannot be manipulated anymore  .  bitcoin can be manipulated by crypto whales  .  though i dont know if what is the difference between wall street manipulation and crypto manipulation  .


Exchanges dont manipulate the price . they only list what is based on the exact data or infos about the crypto coins  .   some says there are exchanges that manipulate the volume of the coins but those exchange are crappy and seems shady .

upvote

Btc is already manipulated by big whales.

If btc will be present on Wall Street one day, then manipulation will be there at another level. Huge whales will be anywhere, so price will not be "free of manipulation" no matter what.

there are many whales in the community and they are the on who can manupilate the market.
If you have a hundred BTC and you want to sell it at rush, then it will be a big problem then. that is manipulation!

According to Wyckoff's theory, the manipulation refers to the Market Makers, Strong Hands, if we take it to the cryptocurrency market it would be the whales, but it is not a totally directed manipulation in one direction, as there are the bearish whales and the bullish whales, where there is a constant battle to prove who has the most strength in the market.

Today, we have seen that the Bitcoin graphic has a student structure since 2009, where according to Wyckoff's theory it shows the Accumulation and Distribution stages. At present we can make studies of technical analysis and fundamental analysis, then, the Strong Hands , they are the ones that decide the direction of the market, and for now until they do not accumulate 70 or 80% of the bitcoins, they will not be able to have the bitcoin their bullish.

According to Tom Williams, author of the book Master the Markets, there is talk about Institutional money, which refers to a possible manipulation of the market, but why manipulation? Simply because they are the ones who have enough money to move the market to the levels they decide to carry.

If we make a parenthesis, in the Stock Market, there are also these movements, which, many times, are not seen as manipulation but as an injection of institutional money.

Then, making a small analogy, that manipulation is of the people or institutions under which, with large amounts of money are able to move the market, and if they exist, being that most of the traders in the cryptocurrency market do not have Such a high power of money to move the market as they can. Then it will be a good term to call these movements manipulation?

To my opinion Bitcoin could be manipulated in some extend although not that big as Wall street. Whales already have their role in Bitcoin manipulation whether we like it or not but as I said crypto market is not such corupted as fiat and I think it will never be. It can't be fully controlled and manipulated because cryptocurrencies are not functioning that way that would allow to individuals or to institutions that take over it.

Of course it can. There are so many manipulations that goes on exchange platforms which I surveyed noticed several times. All these are actions of bot and it has a bad effect for those who keep coins on exchange. Manipulation is not far-fetched in crypto and I believe everyone should be aware of this and be careful in their dealing on exchange platforms.

Holding crypto assets in exchanges is not a good practice because there are many manipulators in exchanges who tries to change the market price for there advantage which destroy the balance of a currency and make losses for honest investors but still cryptocurrency investment is a profitable one if done with patience and proper understanding   

i hate to say it but it's true.

people say wall street is waiting for custody solutions backing regulated markets and what that really means is this: they are waiting for paper bitcoins.

there is this attitude that bitcoin is transparent, therefore it can't be manipulated. and while we may be able to transparently see the registered bitcoins in bakkt's vault for example, we will not be able to see bakkt's books where it will be rehypothecating (using and lending for its own purposes) those bitcoins. like all other assets used as collateral in physically settled markets, the supply of paper bitcoins will be diluted this way. it will be just like the paper gold markets, where multiple gold certificate holders all hold claims on the same piece of physical gold.

As we know, the battered price of BTC that occurred throughout 2018 is one of the effects of the act of manipulation, no doubt the series of corrections have finally contributed greatly to the problems that investors must face or those who adhere to the HODL technique.

bitcoin cannot be manipulated because the data is interconnected between one server and another ... but the possibility of crime is always there, we are obliged to always be careful about everything.

The value of every asset is open to be manipulation and speculation. When it comes to BTC, I think bitcoiners show their strong resistence in 2018 to manipulations. Most of them kept their patience and didn't lose their belief to BTC. Even though some people remember the year of 2018 as a bad year for bitcoiners, I am not one of those. I think previous year must be remembered as a year of victory against to manipulators.

Yes, it's easy to manipulate especially now that there are many centralized exchanges. I hate centralized exchange because you are not the one holding your funds or private keys for every coin you have in your centralized exchange account. The decentralized exchange is the solution for every manipulation happening in crypto.

decentralized exchanges are just as easy to manipulate. even easier actually because they have thin order books.

why would it matter who is holding the private keys? the issue is whether large traders are engaging in pump-and-dumps and trapping gullible investors with their shady "pump groups" and "signal groups". this can happen on centralized or decentralized exchanges---doesn't matter one bit.

centralized exchanges have much better liquidity, so they tend to lead price. that's why they are more important for manipulation. if decentralized exchanges had more liquidity, the manipulation would occur there.

Of course that kind of thing is very possible, we have experienced very crazy changes several times, prices can go to $19k and down to $3k, of course it also contributes to manipulation, wall street has capital that is arguably infinite so they might just do it..

Manipulation can be done but end result will just run for a short period of time. Since the price is all dependent on the dependent, someone who has all the resources could buy great volume in a higher price which will let them set the price higher. Another thing would be whales can do sudden changes, most who has bigger and larger volume has the ability to change the game.

I have heard so many things about this and then at a point I felt sad and pitiful for some people that are always in the ocean of this manipulation process. Anyways the manipulation game is real and it’s being played at will by some set. Everyone should be careful not to lose their bitcoin because of greed or trying to catch some pumps.

Btc cant be manipulated like wall street in bitcoin everything is the transparent and limited number of supply of coins every one can trade but cant manipulate the prices

I think it could be possible because as we experience before the price could be moved by the whales and fake news FUD FOMO.
It is just a simple manipulation but people buy it they dump their crypto or buy some crypto when the influencer's tell them to .
The market is being manipulated and we are riding it we are also the one who is making things happen.

the paper/derivatives bitcoin markets won't be so transparent. a company like bakkt might periodically disclose how many bitcoins are in its vault, but they won't disclose when bitcoin collateral gets rehypothecated (https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2018/08/21/two-things-that-dont-mix-well-bitcoin-rehypothecation-and-chain-forks/). in physically settled commodity markets on wall street, uncovered positions are totally legal and normal. essentially this facilitates a fractional reserve collateral system where multiple parties all believe they have claim to the same collateral (in this case, bitcoins). not only does that create big custodial risks but it will also create a downward pressure on price (just like the paper gold market) because it effectively inflates the coin supply. as long as people view bitcoins and paper bitcoins as interchangeable, the supply can be diluted.

It seems to me that there is already a certain level of manipulation right now. Those who can afford may actually have a chance to influence the market. It only takes money and the rich has it. It is just like the pump and dump groups. The bankers and the elites have billions at their disposal.

everyone ? no i dont think so  . not all have the power to manipulate the price but except from whales because they are known to be rich  . they can buy or sell in bigger volume's resulting for the value to experience a drastic change   .


what about holding crypto assets in a online wallet ? do you think thats more safer than storing your coins on an exchange ?  both are the same because all kind of wallets can potentially be hacked  but that wont likely occur as long as the platform that you are using is known to be legit  but manipulators arent destroying the balance of the scale  . the act of manipulation is pretty normal and infact it can be also an advantage  .

I thought Bitcoin being manipulated is what everyone was complaining about when they talk about those damn 'whales!'.

If bitcoin traded in wall street, i am believe there is will be derivative trading. Its thats happen, bitcoin price can be manipulated by financial expert like bankers make fraction. Its just bitcoin paper or its just a contract not a real bitcoin.
But i am still hoping bitcoin traded in wall street because its give us legitimate on our investment. Its opening the door on regulation

You're right, this is not an honest game of bankers when they trade in simple paper from Bitcoin. In fact, this is a double distribution of a copy of Bitcoin.