Bitcoin Forum

http://willyreport.wordpress.com/

I read this today..and I am still trying to decide what to make of it.  It must have taken so, so, so, long to compile, break down, and analyze all that data.   The conclusions that are drawn from it are pretty hard to dispute.  Whoever is behind this has done a very good job at keeping a low profile, and staying under the radar, unless it is Karpeles himself.

What do you guys make of this?  Obviously we all know that nearly every market is manipulated in one way or another, but after reading some of this, it is pretty undeniable that a lot of the price hikes in Nov/Dec 2013 where directly related to these trades...

Thread and a bit of discussion here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=624877.0 but I'm sure this forum will be flooded with topics on this now  :D. My bet is Mark is just a dodgy fuck.

Cool thanks, didn't mean to re-post, was looking for a discussion about this and didn't find it (except for sporadically throughout the wall observer)...

Yes, very hard to dispute what he has presented, because it's all verifiable. I do want to go through each line of the order book to do the same analysis, but there's just too much time commitment to get the same results.

What's the bounty on justice?

Yeah it would be a full time job in itself to try and break all this down. Obviously, I am massively against market manipulation, but in hind sight, it looks like it could be argued that all of this actually brought more liquidity to the BTC market and made more investors pour money into BTC (playing devil's advocate).

The leaked data has been tampered with....

That is just my opinion.

I read the report. The points are well argued and backed up. I did not verify its claims from the leaked data (most members here will not either). Whether it presented is the trust did not matter. It provided an valid analysis and the liquidators in Japan can use those leads to do their own research. If there were fraudulent transactions initiated from inside gox, they will look into them. MK would be looking at jailtime.

And, also now Sunlot, et al. to look into how they were connected with Mt Gox, not to mention Autumn Radtke's suicide(?).

i don't think it has surprised anyone that the market was manipulated, especially considering the small market cap. you wouldn't even need that much $$$ to make big splashes, and someone is always willing to cross that line to make money.

i think murphy's law is very applicable to bitcoin's adoption. seems to me that bitcoin is both a good and bad thing.. and it just is what it is.

Until Paymium pays me back the 1,132 BTC that they stole from me via InstaWallet, for the past month this is damn close to a full-time job for me, starting with Brock Pierce, et al. firmly in my crosshairs and on my RADAR.

Surprisingly, David Francois (davout, staff on this forum) amassed 1,300+ BTC in one of his fat-ass bitcoin wallets shortly after I lost my 1,132 BTC, once worth $1.5M+ USD from a RL investment of ~$20K USD, worth over $100K USD when Paymium, et al. "hack" their own InstaWallet site. How convenient!

Let's see how we can make something so beautiful, then fuck it up, akin to sex being a beautiful things, but let's see if can fuck children in their asses to achieve the same jollies.

this is an issue that goes beyond bitcoin.. it has more to do with how every fucking thing in this world works. try to manipulate and squeeze every penny out, nevermind the aftermath of the destruction. the older i get, the more pessimistic and cynical i become.

Thanks, bud, for the other day I learnt I'm about to become a great-grandfather at 54.

Phinnaeus...I admire your ability to break down an analyze data and draw interpretations.   What do you make of the report, as far as the numbers...and anyone that you suspect could be responsible?

Didn't Brock and his crew try to mock Mark by offering $1 to take over? (or was it 1BTC)?

I have just posted this comment to the Willy report page on Wordpress:


If the theory above is correct, it would be interesting to know who the Chinese partner could be.  Of course, it could be the same person that owned Markus/Willy, but could be someone else -- a Chinese national, or a non-Chinese with a presence in China.

The "huge amount" is given in the report, about 110 million USD.

Willy may have been buying up coins in order to make good on BTC withdrawal requests, not to pump the price.  Here is a detailed theory on the collapse of Mt. Gox that I believe explains most details including the details described in The Willy Report:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=497289.0

The report is meticulously detailed and the implications are crazy, kudos to the author for taking the time to prepare such a detailed post.

I do struggle to believe that the entirety of the Nov 13 peak is attributable to these bots alone though, purely because the other exchanges reached similar highs. Sure, their price was no doubt steeply over-inflated as a result, but I still think there would have been a reasonable peak regardless of bot activity.

Will be interesting to see how the current price of BTC reacts over the next few days, given that this effectively states that the base is unfounded.

The world of bitcoin is never uninteresting, that's for sure!

How, prey tell, did you finger BTC-China sans mentioning its CEO, Bobby Lee? Now, I have to go into Google-fu mode to see what Bobby Lee has been up to lately unless, of course, somebody wiser than I beats me to the punch(line).  ;)

You know what would be so motherfuckin' funny? If this has all been a misunderstanding, and none of the rouge Bitcoin-base entities are in cahoots with one another.  ::)

That is a work of fiction, it preaches assumptions with no evidence.

The Willy report uses logic and evidence. I think we should hold back with a story line until we find the truth.  It will be told someday.

Does anyone know of a good summary of leading theories on what actually went down in those offices of the sugar coffee leviathan?

It is a work of fiction.  But it is fiction weaved into a plot line around the details that we know to be factual.  In fact it was cited in the Willy Report by the author who opined that it may be very close to the truth:

https://i.imgur.com/mGbVd21.png


The story is about a young man who had a secret.  To keep it hidden, he kept digging until the hole was a billion dollars deep.  It is a speculative tale of a great bitcoin theft from MtGox in 2011 and the efforts that this man undertook to fix it.  The tale explains the bitcoin bear market of 2011, the explosive rally of 2013, delayed fiat withdrawals, malled transactions, and a bot named Willy.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zdnop/peter_rs_theory_on_the_collapse_of_mt_gox/

I don't think Willy's purpose was price pumping...

If the owner of Markus/Willy was an insider, there was no reason for him to go through the normal withdrawal mechanism to take coins out of MtGOX wallets. With that assumption, the absence of withdrawal records in the database is not surprising.

(re-post from another thread)

His final conclusion is probably wrong.
The BTC economy is growing very fast in many parts of the world. Therefore, it is possible to have huge price gains again, and this time they will be "real".

I think we are seeing "real" growth right now. Most of the speculators have been on the sidelines for a while and will be back soon enough but there seems to be a lot more reason and less panic now. The great irony is that the MT GOX pumping might help in the long term by having all ready broken that 1200 psychological barrier.

Soo.... the people who bought coins for $900+.... are they royally fucked?

The path to $1,000+ is much cleaner since we have been there before.  :)
^^^ I know that, but haven't thought about it recently, so thanks for the reminder.

The Willy Report?
If accurate, it is also "great irony" that Mark needed low BTC prices, but his 'buy-back plan' fueled a rally that would seal his fate in the worst way for most people.

at what level is it "real"? most of the last bull run was inspired by speculation... at what level is speculation healthy, and and what level is utility healthy? doesn't seem like there's enough infrastructure to push bitcoin up right now.. it's still speculation i think.

Frankly I have no idea why the price is 580$ now, rather than 58'000$ or 5.80$.  Who knows what it could be next week.

The bull run in November has provided an enormous amount of Liquidity into the market. As well as opening up Bitcoin to many many new users. Before the bull run the price was around $250.

"Willy" did not push the price up to $1200, it was China, want to know why? When the Chinese Government started cracking down on Bitcoin, the price dropped from around $1200 to $900 rapidly. That means, it was the Chinese selling off that caused the fall, not "Willy", which means that it was China that was responsible for most of the huge price increase in November and not "Willy"...

As Bitcoin adoption continues, the price will increase further as more users find home with it, simple.

http://coinmap.org shows what is "real". The Bitcoin ecosystem and infrastructure is booming throughout much of the world.
This isn't 2012 anymore...Welcome to the Brave New World.  :)

It wasn't China alone.  Buy walls fill up when other people are jumping in the market to buy (following each other like a chain reaction), as it is human nature to not want to miss the boat.   So theoretically, if Gox had some sort of bot that was continuously buying, the Chinese could have very well been following these phantom buy orders.

Nice map! Just in time for Sturgis, August 4-10, 2014... Oh, wait...

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2918/14268143061_20e2480530_c.jpg

You know what else isn't on that map? Jeff Ownby's (of BFL) business, thebarnpresents.com, nor is Bitcoin even mentioned on its website, located just a few miles east of where I live, off the same highway, 34/Ogden Rd. What to see the other domains that Jeff owns?

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3696/14291705013_772f4b2a9e_b.jpg

Now, tell me we aren't being fucked when I can show you 100's of business that these fuckers operate, yet don't even mention Bitcoin on their own websites that they've own for years, many prior to the advent of Bitcoin.

Lots of mom and pop businesses, hipster cafes and tech specialists, but in reality bitcoin transaction numbers are only up 2x compared to 2 years ago

yeah was gonna say the same.. just because there are 3 times the amount of vendors, does not mean that bitcoin is changing hands 3x more. it's not even near mainstream yet. a lot of people know about it, but only few have some coins. of the few that have coins, even a smaller portion actually uses it.

.... it's not even near mainstream yet.
True, but.... Look at one of the biggest stories of the year:
Budweiser will be accepting bitcoin as payment at concession stands AND giving $10 in free bitcoins to all attendees of the Budweiser made in America Festival.
Thread here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=621674.0;topicseen
Article here:
https://coinreport.net/budweiser-partners-coinbase
"Budweiser has the potential to get a strong digital currency following as their event’s Concert Series runs between April and August, traveling through Wisconsin to California."

So it is undeniable that Bitcoin IS making huge progress.

So bitcoin is long term investment from now on...no shot term huge rise...that reduces the thrill a lot

Bitcoin usage statistics have been growing right in line with bitcoin's market cap, closely adhering to Metcalfe's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law) for the value of a network:


https://i.imgur.com/QD4JG9w.gif

And, how many of those sites are gambling or tumbler entities?

It makes perfect sense. MtGox was by far the biggest Exchange and so the others followed their trend. When there was a difference between the Price on Gox and other exchanges. People  just bought on other exchanges and sold on Gox. So the Price balances out on the exchanges over time.
Most of the time the Price on Gox was a bit higher than on other exchanges and it "pulled" other exchanges-price with it.

What happened?

Just finished reading, still sitting here with an amazed expression on my face. BTC price was manipulated for months! Right under everyone's noses. BTC not so "volatile" after all, the price we have seen for the past little while is the real thing.

As for whether this means it was an insider-job...there isn't really a smoking gun in the article, but all the evidence the author mentions makes it highly unlikely that it was a hacker. Why? Well besides everything he points out... Gox would've noticed something fishy long before. And all of the things these bots did and the privileges they had seem much more likely for Gox owners (like buying BTC at their own price, lol) to be able to do.

At this point, I just want someone to find a direct link to Karpeles / whoever else was in charge of Gox and had this kind of power to manipulate accounts, bots, prices, etc. Awaiting sweet sweet justice to set precedent for Bitcoin!

edit: I'm surprised this thread has so little posts/ views. This is huge news...

Luckily, it's here: https://bitcointa.lk/threads/proof-of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-and-how-it-has-affected-the-price.319429/page-2

Scrapping one of my most important from it:

Sure is huge, thus surprised to see so many posts.  ::) Imaging if the word cat what in its title, hell, we'd be at 42 pages already.

But, luckily, we have Brock Pierce, an accused pedophile, and Bobby Lee, CEO of BTC China, an exchange, on the board at The Bitcoin Foundation to straighten this shit out.

And both transaction count and total BTC transaction volume have been roughly constant for the past few months.  The latter is surprising since the price has fallen.

The bulk of transactions (in either metric) is probably unrelated to commerce anyway. May be online gambling, fund management, mining, and/or people moving BTC between addresses that they own (such as hot/cold wallets, or attempts to make dirty money hard to trace), etc.

Was the thread "Proof of massive fraudulent trading activity and how it has affected the price" really removed from this forum?  If true, that could only mean that it was on the right track...  ;)  :P

this is fucking epic!

The title did not help. When I first saw this, I thought it was a film. It took me the better half of an hour to read the whole report. The average signature spammers aren't going to waste their time reading it.

I faintly remember reading threads about this bot. Didn't think much for it at the time, a bot buying btc at set intervals when prices falls within a preset range is normal for a bot, right? Now we know there are nothing but normal. Their userid in the #800000 range proves that those accounts must be created manually inside gox and not by a user registering on the website.

This visualization (http://bitcoin.stamen.com) allows you to spot Willy miles away, because Willy can bend the rules like Neo in Matrix and buy bitcoins at random prices. If the database is real, there is no doubt in my mind someone in the exchange is stealing coins.

I've just nearly finished reading it, and it's unfortunate to hear that Karples and Gox might have been rotten to the very core. I had for a long time held out hope they were just fighting the good fight against hackers, etc... but of course these days that was obviously naive fantasy. I was hoping they were massively incompetent, not outright criminals.

And then you see the statements that they were issuing, passing on blame, tarnishing the reputation of others in an attempt to cover things up.

I wonder how much that the day-to-day staff at Mt Gox knew about what was going on, I suppose that they were just doing their jobs and are unfortunate to have been caught up in all of this.

I recall reading something from a member of staff at Gox saying that Mark was using consumer funds to bankroll an on-site coffee shop.

This report further damns those running Gox; not only are they alleged to have misused user's funds, but they played an active role in the manipulation of prices. Absolutely disgraceful.

I'm sure that was probably just a joke based on the frappuchino meme that sprung up.

The problem is: we somehow know where the coins have gone, and it doesn't look like they are being withdrawn the way described in the OP at all.
And it still doesn't explain how can Gox draining their cold wallets empty without even paying attention, if they ever use one.

It was all fake, fake BTC and fake USD, and the real coins are in the hands of thiefs and scammers, welcome to bitcoin!

The Willy Report is terrific news! You try to manipulate the price of BTC -> you get punished and go out of business! BTC for win! BTC for life!!!

I think this is interesting in the fact that Mark had mentioned the ability to purchase a private API which would trade even if the public API was offline, so it implicates Mt. Gox KNOWING what was going on no matter what. Even then the suspicious no sell/no withdraw issues would certainly be noticed. Not to mention the buy price remaining the same for these "users".

Some sort of criminal prosecution might be desired, however I think it might be difficult to tie Mt. Gox directly to these bots. They might have known about them, but may not have been using them.

All of this seems like good data analysis and I applaud ANY research into this matter.

Mining company and exchange working together, massive fraud !

knc bfl avalon bitfury mgox bitstamp fundation is same hole

we are fuck
bitcoin is opensource but persons are corrupt

Wow. I am shocked. Pretty much all I thought I knew about the history of Bitcoin seems to be fake, all the bubbles, the crazy rides... all just driven by a crazy fat dude who loves overpriced coffee drinks. Thank you for the thorough report, I learned a lot.

http://www.coindesk.com/bot-named-willy-did-mt-goxs-automated-trading-pump-bitcoin-price/
http://willyreport.wordpress.com/

After willy, 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9Ak1t09Ao

And topics:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=476535.0;topicseen
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179586.0;topicseen

LMAO, like if the latest uptrend/break isn't manipulation too.. ;D

I tend to throw CoinDesk into that dirty bucket as well.

-bm

agreed. we doomed. i would rather have preferred people like Phin, MP & Friedcat to lead Bitcoin to eternal glory

right coindesk maybe do part this mafia

but this moment bot is running in china as you can see http://p2pbucks.com/altcoin/pie.php

today's popular business,

1.open exchange
2.0% fees
3.cooperate with mining company
4.spread speculation
5.buy willy boot


And Grow Rich

Well I read the report, and my conclusion is, Karples deserves life in prison.

I still believe my reading of the report: the bubbles were real, caused by the demand in China, and Markus/Willy were merely carrying them over to MtGOX by arbitrage (probably with BTC-China at first).  It does not contradict the facts of the report, and seems supported by the data from BTC-China.  

There is nothing wrong with arbitrage, of course, even when it radically changes the "natural" price at a given exchange.  There may be ethical problems, perhaps, if the arbitrager is also the exchange owner, or has special privileges that are denied to other traders.  Doing arbitrage with fake money, counting on later inputs, would have been very risky, and was ultimately fatal.   Allowing clients to deposit and trade, without telling them that the exchange was insolvent, will be hopefully characterized as crime.

EDIT: not to mention stalling withdrawals and lying to customers all the time.

I'm not well versed in financial matters and the technicalities of bitcoin maybe somebody can help:

Is it possible to link this data to information on the blockchain? to verify the movement of bitcoin and to see where it went.


Does this mean that Gox took the customers money and withdrew it to their bank accounts in Japan?

THis^^

As soon as the Chinese government "cracked" down on Bitcoin, the uptrend stopped and the price fell immediately from $1200 to $900...

That means the Chinese were the ones for the cause of the bubble, with Willy merely instigating it.

Judge for yourself;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9Ak1t09Ao

I realize I've mentioned NXT many times lately, but IMHO the good people are over at the NXT project.

-bm

aaaaahahahahahahah
thats too much i cant take it anymore. even with tangible proofs, how come people here still are blind by the sh*t they have in their eyes, following like little sheeps what academic trollz come up with best with their narrowed understanding of Bitcoin and its ecosystem.

Why are you here? Go to 4chan.

there is a very clear aspect here of blaming China for the problems, when it's clear the corruption is not coming from China.

-bm

Price is retreating slowly. Now that the cat is out of the bag with the Willie Bot. :-\

Broken bot,
new TypeError([message[, fileName[,lineNumber]]])

Im publishing my source code for my trading bot:


-bm

Willie Report 2 months old Reddit rehashed news http://goo.gl/VYDOvP

Maybe 4 months old http://goo.gl/21JQxJ

Already priced into Market back during the March and April doldrums.

So the whole story of Willy was exaggerated and falsified by someone wanting to try and drive Bitcoin's price down, and it was just Mark Karpeles laundering his stolen Bitcoins, while using a trading Bot to make it seem to onlookers that it was a hacker who was manipulating MtGox?  ::)

Who is next ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9Ak1t09Ao

Seriously, if you believe that a SINGLE BOT can be the major reason for a bitcoin bubble you should probably turn off your computer and stop trading right now before bad decisions will cost you money. lol

Seriously, if you can not believe that a SINGLE BOT can be the major reason for a bitcoin bubble,
you should convert your USD to BTC.  :)

Consider this:

If willy was the major cause of the huge spike in price and the whole bubble  we would have had ALL (or a VAST majority) of the trading  volume on MtGox while other exchanges would have had INSIGNIFICANT amounts of volume COMPARED to Gox.
The only way for exchanges to drive the price up would have been to higher the asks without massive buying (simply gradually adjusting the price as MtGox was going higher) --> bubble with low volume on the other exchanges.

Of course these big differences in volume didn't happen, there were equal and huge amounts of volume on all the major exchanges, that means that the actual panic  buying was happening, and it was real, no Willy Wonka bot CAUSING the bubble.



Willy probably had some influence, but not much considering the volume spread across all exchanges.

I've read all your posts and they all make no sense, can you not think for yourself or do you take whatever others say without thought, dumbass? And thus I ignore you, classifying you as a retard beyond comprehension.

Check what google says !

https://www.google.nl/search?q=willy+bot&noj=1&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:w&sa=X&ei=D3aDU-2hK8WbO7fGgdgK&ved=0CB4QpwUoAw&biw=1000&bih=721

The trading bot, or rather money laundering machine, was already factored into Bitcoin's price.

I have been hearing all sorts of point of views on the subject, ranging from CIA conspiracy to crush bitcoin, China, bankers, money laundering and the list goes on and on.
It is too soon to pin point exactly the main purpose of this bot & its culprits  (apart from rigging the price).
It's going to be one bumpy ride that's for sure.  ;D

bitcoin pump is stopped.
Why ?
Willy bot is broken ?
willy bot is uncovered ?

There was never a pump to begin with..Go learn english, fool.

Maybe ;D

$430 to $590 for 3 days ?
Why ?
Willy bot is broken ?
willy bot is uncovered ?

and first, you learn Russian, fool

I do not get what you are getting at.  It is obvious that there was foul play at MtGOX, and China does not seem directly responsible for it (although, if it was indeed arbitrage as I believe, there may have been other people involved at the other end.)

The "arbitrage hypothesis" does not change the basic fact claimed by the Willy Report: someone inside MtGOX bought bitcoins from clients, but instead of paying them with real dollars (as the clients thought) paid them with fictitious "goxDollars", mere IOUs without any backing assets.  That, I suppose, is a crime in itself.  Presumably the buyer thought that he could get real dollars in time to make good on those IOUs, without the clients ever knowing.   Of course the goxDollars were as good as real dollars in raising the price at MtGOX.

The only contribution of the "arbitrage hypothesis" is the claim that those bitcoins were sold in China, and that the price at MtGOX merly tracked the 2013 bubbles, instead of creating them.

You're so stupid, this is an english forum.

really ?

well this is the basic problem, that they are inflating the price of BTC.  The plan was to make a pump and dump scheme, get people to buy in, and then get out before the music stops.  The problem was the Chinese exchanges who were not in on it, and probably took off with some of the money.

note that the suicide CEO exchange was in Singapore, which is a typical financial mediator between Asia and various Western countries.  Not completely sure what happened here but it seems likely this is part of the puzzle.

-bm

massive fraud

clearly there's some hidden element here involving mostly China and partly Russia.  The Chinese are obviously tripping up some kind of back-room dealings, and they're blaming the corruption on them when clearly it's not coming from China.

-bm

Now, China only copies MtGox and willy bot or more precisely Huobi copies all and bitstamp follows
because now  90% mining company working in China and they want to pump bitcoin prices.

It's the same story, but different actors.

This is a scandal of great proportion, no doubt about it.
Wait until the Mainstream News Agencies get hold of this story.
Good Times. 

You must have a monopoly(or greatly dominate) the exchanges to run a scam like this.  If someone else is pumping, or not pumping and just selling them off- then it would cause issues.  You need real money to 'prime the pump' and I guess this Chinese activity was siphoning off some of that which might have caused the disruption, and then some insiders sell off large amounts to cover their bases.  I dont see the strange events surrounding the Singapore exchange to be a coincidence.

A (somewhat) plausible yet speculative explanation.

-bm

just look at a small portion of the sheer corruption and madness emanating from the Bitcoin Foundation!

not sure about this Phineas guy, he seems a bit ragged - but you can't deny that there is some fishy stuff happening here.

-bm

doesnt matter for me, if it was private investors like mark is saying or bot or inside trading
everybody took action based on own mind and price flow

the important question is how much were they pumping the price, and is it still inflated?

-bm

approximately 10x pumping the price

I never trusted Mark. Wasnt he involved in some fraud in his early years?

that was my opinion some time ago.  There is simply no way that 1 bitcoin is worth one thousand dollars!  or even a few hundred.

part of the pump scam is also owning media outlets who mindlessly promote an agenda, and we certainly have that now don't we?  Coindesk.

-bm

Makes you wonder what the actual 'real' value of bitcoin is and where it would be without this business.

ofcourse is not actual price and rising
its a joke this rising only after amsterdam event
 :-\

What does Amsterdam have to do with anything? I dont see how thats related.

Sorry, I don't beieve in that.  Since November at least, perhaps since April 2013, and until now, the evolution of the BTC price is well explained by natural demand in China, and the subsequent events there.  I am pretty sure that the 2013 bubbles would have developed the same way even without Markus/Willy, except that the price may have risen faster and higher without them.  (Arbitrage naturaly slows down rallies and crashes that originate in only some of the exchanges.)

And I don't see how one can tell whether the price is/was inflated, since there is no objective criterion to establish the "correct" price.

EDIT: Evolution of the BTC price

And, will probably become more ragged the longer I wait for davout, staff on this forum, to return my 1,132 BTC that's currently residing in one of his fat-ass bitcoin wallets thanks to InstaWallet "hack".

Odd, how he and his two partners became bitcoin-rich, in spite of having no returns on their failed enterprises, and with Bitcoin-Central - back by a bank name Lemon Way known for its ONLY ONE app - performing lacklusterly, at best.

BTW, David Francois and Mark Karpeles have been friends for years, possibly French Fuck Fuddies.

there is no reason why would have these run-ups.  They are pure speculation.  I've seen these sorts of schemes in action before(dot com bubble) and it's the same game plan and the same characters.

People even note on this forum over and over again- what do you actually USE bitcoin for?  what is the answer?

its simple if actual price we have is not real because increase with bot
so how can 20% in few days
at point you not see dahh

It's possible that the november bubble was not entirely driven by the fundamentals or even that the bots contributed significantly to its sustenance.

What it would mean : november cannot count as a fundamentals driven bubble like the previous ones.

What it would mean : we are due for the next fundamentals driven bubble anytime now.

Yes. It's bullish.

what are the fundamentals?

what is the real demand for Bitcoin?

-bm

People use bitcoin as a easily transferable and secure store of value.

Nothing beats bitcoin for that very important function. This alone, and without mass adoption as payment technology, is enough to bring it to a multi trillion market cap.

The fundamentals are very simple : the worldwide need for an easily transferable and secure store of value, in the context of a zombie monetary system (governments, banks etc... virtually bankrupt).

ok and ?

wht is point bah you have altscoin is more cheap
why spend high money in joke of price bitcoin
nonsence wht you say

wht part you not understand exchangers manipulted the price

You may want to check this comment by Ian Green to the Willy Reports:
http://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-report-proof-of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-at-mt-gox-and-how-it-has-affected-the-price-of-bitcoin/comment-page-1/#comment-13 (http://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-report-proof-of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-at-mt-gox-and-how-it-has-affected-the-price-of-bitcoin/comment-page-1/#comment-13)
Some tantalizing finds on the blockchain...

Because bitcoin fulfils the function of secure store of value better than your altcoins that have a very uncertain future. Secure implies more likely to continue to exist. I do not think BTC is overvalued compared to any other altcoins existing today, quite the contrary.

In the case of the 2013 bubbles, there defintely was a new, sudden, huge demand in China: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/1206/Why-the-Chinese-can-t-get-enough-of-Bitcoin-despite-bank-ban (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/1206/Why-the-Chinese-can-t-get-enough-of-Bitcoin-despite-bank-ban) 

Anyone elkse wondering why they had to call it the Willy report? Cant take myself serious when I say it.

The nickname "Willy" was given to the robot shortly after it was noticed, back in December IIRC.

a secure store of value that anyone can produce by creating an altcoin?

the model isn't exactly rock solid.

-bm

i feel like this was all pretty much common knowledge to those on the forum/reddit months ago. i remember reading all about it in the "speculation" subforum shortly after MT Gox shut down and the market crashed.

This business is very sketchy and not good for bitcoin. I wonder if this puts mark in more trouble?


Why'd they call it willy though?  :D

Everyone can create an altcoin. But not bitcoin.
Nobody can create an altcoin that will get the same support that bitcoin has. Of course in theory everything can happen. But we are talking about facts, not theory.

Your logic is flawed. It's like saying that everyone could launch a social media website with some cheap code, therefore Facebook has no value as a social media. But its USE and SUPPORT as a social media is what creates its value as a social media. It has nothing to do with the ease of replication of its concept.

The value of bitcoin lies only in its use, support and recognition by people. The value of bitcoin has nothing to do with the ease of replication of its concept.

Do you fail to understand this ?

that's a horrible analogy.

Facebook isn't a currency or 'store of value'.  It's very easy to clone bitcoin and have it work with all the adapters that exist for Bitcoin.  If Bitcoin were to rise in price enough, all the services can just switch to an altcoin or offer a choice.  You can even automate exchanges to and from Bitcoin.  Bitcoin has a small privilege, but not a big one and ultimately price will determine how valuable it is.

The analogy only serves to show that the value lies in the recognition and acceptance and choice of people. This is the case whatever we talk about.

The privilege of being the chosen store of value is not a small privilege. It makes all the difference. It creates trust.

Altcoins do not create trust. And the ease of creation of new altcoins actually plays against all of them. The more altcoins are created, the less chances any altcoins will succeed at all in the long term.

The ease to use another crypto on the infrastructure is true, but if there is no incentive to hold and use an altcoin as compared to holding and using a bitcoin, why would someone choose an altcoin with less trust than a bitcoin ? It won't make much sense.

As you say, ultimately price will determine how valuable bitcoin is as an easily transferable store of value.

Another important point that strengthen the facts I talk about is the actual need for this secure store of value.
If people would dilute into hundreds of altcoins - the function of secured store of value would be considerably lowered.
What makes a crypto secure is directly related to the number of people who use it as a store of value and the people who use it to transact.

The argument here is that there will be no individual or collective incentives to depreciate the store of value function of bitcoin. In fact, it is the contrary that is true. Individually, people will have interest to store their wealth in BTC as compared to altcoins because altcoins play this function very poorly. They might be nice speculative toys, but they are very poor store of value. Collectively, people will have interest to store their wealth in BTC because it strenghtens the security of that store of value.

People will use BTC as a store of value mostly because they need a store of value. The BTC properties and support make it possible, but the most important ingredient is the need of the people.

Arguing that crypto will never play the role of storage of value because altcoins will proliferate is illusory in my opinion. Crypto already plays this role, it is bitcoin. Arguing that this role will be shared amongst hundreds of crypto is also illusory. The reason is that crypto are so easy to create that it would bring the value of all of them to zero, defeating the role of store of value and making it impossible to transact with. It is happening with altcoins, their multiplication is hurting the very little storage of value function that they were having. I don't see things improving much for altcoins as a whole going forward.

"What makes a crypto secure is directly related to the number of people who use it as a store of value and the people who use it to transact. "

if that is true, the Proof of Stake model is superior because it achieves this without the need for expensive computing power.

-bm

I love how half the threads on this forum are currently talking about this. Has Karpales spoke out publically regarding it?

This is another subject. The point is that if bitcoin is the chosen store of value, it's model will be adapted to what is perceived as offering the highest network security and reliability.
Proof of Stake is likely to be adopted at some point imo.

so you're accusing the forum moderators of stealing your 1,132 BTC?

haven't really followed your story, but this is the land of Bitcoin and if you think your money is safe here you are WRONG.

-bm

I don't think Karpeles has spoken publicly about anything...let alone a potential bot that most would assume he was either behind, or had to do with..

Very, very interesting... Although I think a better name than Markus could have been used.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that it was common knowledge (which is why it was all speculation), but (correct me if I am wrong), nobody to this point has presented the data as detailed and broken down as this report does.

in a sens all this manipulation story is very bullish. basically Bitcoin has been overtaken by obscure greedy forces including the foundation et al. that wont stop until they eventually end up filthy rich. so i would reasonable argue that if you manage not to get eaten by those sharks, you should eventually end up with coins valued @10k+ within the next 4 years (& considering its growth rate since the last 4 years). there is no efficient market, free from fraud and from manipulation. as long as there are dark forces driving us up for their very own profit, im good. we're on the winning team guys :D

After reading further, Markus suddenly sounds like a perfectly appropriate name. Nevermind my earlier post.

I've never even heard of the "bot buyer" theory @MtGox until now, so its FAR from common knowledge even amongst those "in the know" of bitcoin.

At the end of the day, we need to set a new ATH.   That way there will be no debate on how we got there :)

i had my suspicions that something like this was going on, but figured it was crazy talk. it's crazy how things like this happen in bitcoin -- wild wild west stuff. can't wait until we get some professional level exchanges.

That is a double edged sword, because a lot of people will say that regulation will prevent things like this (even though it wouldn't)...

we can prevent it with technology.

in the NXT AE, the only risk in 'counterparty risk' as in- will the issuer of your bearer asset redeem the value of the note?  The risk varies depending on the nature of the underlying in question(if it's bitcoin the risk can be reduced to near zero).  Also the risk can flow freely on the exchange, if an issuer is thought to be disreputable, people will transfer out instantly- thus there is a near real-time reflection of issuer reputation.

ex.  someone issues gold-backed bearer shares in Switzerland.  News got out that their reserves were incomplete- within minutes of the press release, the trading value of those bearer assets are halved.

This real-time response forces the issuers to adhere to strict standards of accountability.

-bm

Just for curiosity: the Willy Report got some coverage in Chinese e-media today (which is alread Tue May/27 in China)

比特币去年年末暴涨，是因为机器人交易？
[GT]Bitcoin skyrocketed late last year , because the robot trading ?[/GT]
2014-05-27 08:32:59 Source: ZDNet
http://tech.163.com/14/0527/08/9T85SOTU000915BF.html (http://tech.163.com/14/0527/08/9T85SOTU000915BF.html)

Since all this took place during bitcoin's rise mainly in Nov/Dec 2013, I would think that an ATH that a bot may or may not have brought on (back then),  should not have too much effect on current prices.  As we all know 6 months ago in BTC time, is like a decade ago...

The price had a sudden drop minutes ago.  I suppose that it is the Chinese traders reading the Willy Report, realizing that they never existed, and dumping their non-existent coins on their non-existing exchanges.  ;)

Please people do some basic research. Willy bot trading amounted to less than 3% of BTC traded in November (the figures are easy to find). The price impact would have been marginal. Without Willy the ATH might have been US$ 20 lower. So what?

I said it once and I repeat. we know how BOTs work, we know they are there. Willy does not matter.

 ::)

The impact on price is not proportional to volume traded.  Most volume recycles the same coins and/or follows the price set by a few traders.  The effect of Markus's lump buys in August, for example, is quite evident.

If Markus/Willy it was indeed THE arbitrage trader that brought the rally from China to MtGOX (and I still have not seen any argument to the contrary), then it was responsible for 90% of the all-time high.

Other arbitrage traders may have arisen if Markus/Willy wasn't there, and some such may have operated, in a less obvious manner, in the later stages of the rally.  However, direct arbitrage with China may have not ben trivial to set up.  Certainly is was not trivial after the December decrees, when BTC-China lost its convenient bank-mediated money channels.  Also, until Nov/29 the arbitrage flow was all in one direction, while after Nov/29 it had to work in both directions, and quickly.  Different arrangements with China, and other money channels, would have been required then.

Page seems to have been taken down, but the cache is up http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oc0Mtte8l6MJ:willyreport.wordpress.com

So, he was right after all, at least in some major parts ...

they probably threatened to sue for defamation.

-bm

just a precursor to a major dump

Welcome to the Brave New Free World...

I haven't been back to this thread in a bit, you guys are right, the article has been removed. And the plot thickens... Dun dun dun... Does anyone still need to read it? We can copy and paste it here if so...

You can not be the right Mark Karpeles, since he would have written soon-ish. ;)

Lol the letter above is classic!!

FTFY