Bitcoin Forum

I've been warning Bitcoiners for over a year about the dangers of the big, centralized exchanges like CoinBase, BTC-E, and BitStamp.

These exchanges are manipulating the price of Bitcoin on a colossal scale.  Just as the Karpeles 'trading bot' pumped the price of BTC last November, new trading bots at the big exchanges are artificially deflating the price so they can 'buy in' at the lowest rates.

see https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-manipulation-centralized-exchanges-seems-coordinated/

Do not believe the current price of Bitcoin - it is not representative of the true value and potential of the currency. 

THE PRICE OF BITCOIN AS QUOTED ON THE MAJOR EXCHANGES IS A COMPLETE AND UTTER FRAUD.

first time i have ever had to agree with a link moriarty posts..

PHP based exchanges are very much fake valuations

Well, of course. That's how multiple exchanges work. If there's any significant price difference between exchanges, somebody will buy on one and sell on another, and the prices will equalize. The prices will close up to the cost of the transaction, which is a few percent on Bitcoin exchanges.

This is arbitrage.

If you see a significant difference between exchanges, that's a bad sign. It means there's trouble getting funds out of some exchange. Remember when Mt. Gox was far higher than anyone else?  That was because most investors couldn't get funds out of Mt. Gox.

Is there any chance of price going down due to Mintpal scam? I think some whales lost their money big time and no luck getting them back.

I am pretty sure, it is bots, who even that difference out.

While I do agree that it is generally a bad idea to hold your bitcoin at an exchange, I do dispute your claim that the exchange are manipulating the price of bitcoin.

All the willy bot was, a mechanism that whales were able to purchase large amounts of bitcoin via gox in an orderly fashion. Likewise the price of bitcoin on the exchanges are merely a result of supply and demand

The willy bot put money in his account out of thin air to purchase this large amounts of bitcoin.

I think Bitcoin is better off at $100 anyways.

So many regulation questions and countries starting to get hostile to it... I just don't see a rally in the future, but I guess I didn't see one coming after the SR got popped either.

Just gamble for your losses n all will be well :P

Exchanges do not need to manipulate the price, they receive fees either way. There just isn't enough demand at the moment. That should soon change when bitcoin stays strong every time it touches $300.

I wouldn't mind that myself. But $100 is going to strike fear in many users. Some could see that as a total lose in confidence.

If you think they are driving the price down, buy it all up at discounted price by all mean.

Thanks dad!

There is no reason to worry, the capital is flowing from Bitcoin into more advanced and enhanced crypto technologies. 2009-2013 was the era of Bitcoin as a pioneering crypto currency building basis and providing bootstrapping mechanisms for other crypto technologies, enabling software engineers to form new mentalities and think of novelty ideas. 2014 is the turning point. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=766406.0) Bitcoin will not die, of course, not for the next few years, but it has essentially served its purpose and will have no choice but fade away ushering in new crypto trends.

New interesting projects have received funding from bitcoins and are on track to bring amazing technological break-throughs to the world. Bitcoin will always remain grandfather of them all, but as a technology, it's easy to see that its lack of development progress is making it obsolete very fast. Take a step back and watch how crypto space has advanced over the past year: from just one crypto with a few carbon copies to a plethora of crypto (2.0) technologies with an ambition to change the world just as Bitcoin's legacy calls for. Amazing times!

My friends warned me that bitcoin is bull shit 3 years ago, can i trust them? the sad story is I believe them.

No, your friend is clueless. Bitcoin is just the first step on the ladder.

Question is, why would they NOT manipulate this enormous, unregulated, gullible market full of people wanting to get rich off of magic internet beans?

It's a con 's wet dream.

Arbitrage bots.

Quote from the article:
These are the price junctures where manipulation forced price in the opposite direction than that dictated by wave principle:

So if the price doesn't move accordingly to the "wave theory" then it's manipulated? LOL
And what the hell is this wave theory in the first place?

I've read the Venzen Kahosan bullshits many times in the past he is the kind of trader who loves to draw thousands of meaningless lines on the chart and always concludes:
"If it breaks this level then it will go up, instead if it breaks this support the price will go down". That is the perfect loser mindset.
This guy has no fucking clue of how financial markets work, stop listening to his bullshits please.

And unless you can still deposit your money in those exchanges, buy the offers shown in the orderbook and withdraw your bitcoins, please explain me how the hell is that supposed to be a fraud or a fake price?

Have you ever heard of fractional reserve?
You basically say, "If I can cash out my money from the bank, why the hell do you think, they don't have all the money of the customers in their vault?"
Have you ever heard of mtgox?

There is no such thing as manipulation for a peer to peer currency.

Traders around the world will buy if there is a perceived discount for bitcoin.

This.

That article uses a lot of words to say very little of substance. All it amounts to is a hunch.

Exchanges are not peer to peer ...

Explain how this is possible. Are they the one responsible for the price drop by putting tons of btc in the open market and selling cheap?

What does this have to do with the programming language the exchange is written in?  ???

Exactly. I'm afraid there's not much we can do about price manipulation and it really is disheartening. There's no way to tell what the current value of bitcoin is and even the peak price looks to have been manipulated to there.

Does anyone have a summary of the btc prices on distributed exchanges? That would settle the matter, I guess.

Exchanges can manipulate price in the short term but as long as there is liquidity where people can withdraw their funds in fiat or bitcoin the exchanges have to be generally accurate of the market demands.

The manipulation you were seeing with Mtgox was afforded by the delays and outright prevention of withdrawal of first fiat and than Bitcoin.

http://www.coindesk.com/price/


    Bitfinex
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    LakeBTC

I doubt that exchanges are manipulating the price down, on the contrary they are interested to pump it up but can't do much now.
The bubble has to properly deflate and then the Willy clones will pump the price up, after the last ATH will be broken new bagholders will rush in.

They could manipulate it to buy more then do the opposite and dump. Can't trust anybody in the bitcoin game now. Far too many scammers and crooks just looking for a quick profit.

Mmmmm love it :P

Selling bitcoin, 1200$ each.

When an exchange does this how do they fulfill orders of users who decide to buy ultimately?
I.E.... Say they manipulate their price index to reflect an unnaturally low Bitcoin price with the intent of shaking weak hands into selling their coins cheaper. What happens if the real buyers during this fake price dip out-number the real sellers?

One advantage an exchange has is to assume that a certain percentage of buy and sell orders will not be cancelled and than use that knowledge to strategize ways of profiting between these orders. The way for clients to protect against this is make immediate blind orders and enough fake orders that are cancelled at the last moment to throw off any insider trading algorithm an exchange uses.  

Chinese exchanges are nothing but exchange, there is no trading fees.
Their profit come from something else...
People deposit their BTC, the exchange sell the BTC for FIAT and give a % interest (in BTC) on the account.
The Bitcoins does not exist but it is so improbable that people withdraw that the scam can go on for a while.

Example :
I deposit 100 BTC.
The exchange sell my BTC for 1000 USD/BTC, they get 100K USD in da pocket.
I do not withdraw or sell my BTC because the exchange give me interest in BTC.
They push the price down to 900 USD/BTC with totally fake volume.
I now have 100 BTC + 2 BTC interest on my account.
The thing is, my 102 BTC are now worth 91800 USD so I lost 8200 USD to earn 2 BTC.
Repeat.
Profit !! (the exchange, not me)

They'll keep doing it until Bitcoin is worth zero unless we stop them.

Exactly , I agree with #turvarya . It is only a question of manipulation and the exchanges don't help the "peer-to-peer" idea.

On the good site: You can make peer-to-peer-trades with openbazar(when it has finished) and I have heard of another peer-to-peer-exchange-project(but forgot the name)

if the price goes down is because someone has sold bitcoin to fiat at that price
profit of exchanges is in bitcoin volume

Then why are you still here?

Indeed I wanted to say same thing.

But funny is that their manipulation will be not possible if people will stop dumping.

You already can make peer to peer trades today. That is not the problem. The problem is the price discovery. Because even person to person trades will be based on an exchange rate / index published somewhere (give or take a few percent).

You guys are gonna have another ball on your private part by the time bitcoin hits thamoon

We dont care about the price of bitcoin with fiat money. For us 1bitcoin=1bitcoin and this a real value and not comparison with fiat scam money.

That's the best way to look atit a lot of people are to fussed about it being worth this much in fiat

What a loser's mentality. Its like the losers when i was a kid who kept saying : The important is not necessarily to win but to participate. Come one man...

Ok you are a winner. You win a paper with some funny sketch on it...you deserve this value for you life..Winner :P

http://www.vector-eps.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/old-american-dollars-models.jpg

You don't get it. The Bitcoin on an exchange are not real Bitcoin.
Those Bitcoins are not on the blockchain and therefore can be faked.

Chinese exchange have no trading fees.

probably exchanges are trading fake bitcoins.
by fake I mean they know that there always will be some stash of coins which will not be withdrawn all at once.
So if they know that they got X ammount of bitcoins which will always be there, they can manipulate the price with it.
I wonder what would happen to the exchanges if all coin holders would cash out all of their holdings in the same time.

Is that the reason for the price dip? So coinbase can buy more bitcoin? Doubtful.

market cap would go to zero

Not exactly.  Price Discovery would be difficult and Market Cap would be determined by other sources like localbitcoins and marketplaces like purse.io or simply word of mouth. Arbitrage would grow between locations greatly.

Well hey, if it's low now just don't sell any to FIAT (I understand some folks HAVE to at times)...so just hold it.  If those exch's are THAT powerful and rich to manipulate the price, just wait a bit until it goes back up...boom, make more money.  Mind you I'm sure tehre's MUCH more to it re. the bitcoin price manipulation than just "big exchanges" messing with it.

Producers and sellers will only sell the coin on the exchange which quote them the best price.

Anyone who think the price can be manipulated, care to give the mechanic on how this can be done?

It is discussed here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=866258.0

What is being said there is total horseshit.

Conditions to manipulate price for long term simultaneously on all exchanges do not exists.

Do you also believe the stock market can not be manipulated?

Though I agree with the fact stated above, I disagree with your hatred against PHP.

Correct, one thing has nothing to do with the other.

First of all, exchanges don't even provide 'valuations', they provide market prices based on order flow.

As others pointed out, it is impossible for exchanges to manipulate prices for very long because of arbitrage.

If an exchange artificially lowers price, they do it to their own detriment because traders will buy it cheap from them and sell elsewhere.  If they artificially raise price, they lose money in the same fashion as traders buy from other exchanges and dump them at a premium.  The only exceptions I can think of are a ridiculously large spread, or a gox situation where you can't get your money out; that's a different story.

As for PHP, there is nothing wrong with it per se.  There are many wonderful MVC PHP frameworks available which make front end development robust.  It may not be ideal for the backend of a large scale trading engine, but even that depends on the database and the overall architecture of the system.  

also, folks should stop pretending/assuming they know the architecture of someone else's website when they don't.

The stock market can be manipulated however it is not manipulated by the exchanges, it can potentially be manipulated by market participants (although this is very rare as the stock market is heavily regulated).

Well then make an exchange yourself, and don't manipulate the price? (if that is the case)

Well sometimes it's a person's job to do just that..

not real bitcoins but claims on real bitcoins, just go there and withdraw your bitcoins...
The issue is just a matter of counterparty risk, when you have so many exchanges doing fractional reserve, but then again, people should just not leave their BTC on any exchange's account... The same goes for securities trading.

My ass, it is rare. It even happened here in Austria.
Whenever I told a people here in Austria, that the stock market can be manipulated, they told me it is not possible, since "free market and regulation and stuff"
Now, we have a court decision that says: Yes, it was manipulated. And that is just a case, where we could proof it, since people made stupid mistakes.

So, please live in your dream world, where bad things are not happening because off  "free market and regulation and stuff". I am really done discussing this topic with ignorant people.

It's indeed not rare, but it's usually not the market price being manipulated, not consistently for a long time at least, that would be way too expensive! unless you are the Fed.


For example, the bad guys will manipulate a close or a fixing, on which they have a lot of derivatives settling. That way they get more return on manipulation. See the recent manipulation cases : FX or LIBOR, it all relates to fixing affecting other products, like bank customer lending rates, FX contracts...

Bitcoin will survive and thrive!
However, with impending regulations, it will become a mainstream coin available on everyone's smartphone one day.
The new and improved Alt/Cryptocurrencies will thrive anonymously and when a new star is born, they will also be brought into the mainstream.

yeah it should be way way higher totally undervalued

When everybody tries to manipulate everyone else, it evens out.

That is not a good way to look at something.
That would  work, if the forces who are working against each other are equivalent in strength and that is just stupid to assume.

Are you saying that the current price is much low then it should be ? how much 1 BTC should worth at your opinion ? :o

I can understand the fascination with speculation, but not everyone is concerned with the value of what it is today but of course the people who want to make a pretty penny from it as fast as they can are.

The price is always essentially going to be determined by supply and demand so once the demand goes up so should the price theoretically, and I believe bitcoin has only scratched the surface of its usefulness so far, so yes, the price should reflect that at some point in the future. As long as we can keep pushing adoption to the masses, which I'm sure it will achieve over time, the value should follow.

IMO we should all ditch fiat currency so 1 BTC should be worth 1 BTC. 

1btc always will be worth 1btc, but maybe in the future we wont peg it to fiat or fiat dies and bitcoin will take on its own worth. That would be awesome.

Right, ok, let me try another angle: If someone is to forcibly stop everyone else (but not themselves) to try to manipulate, it is even worse. But you know, the market can handle it. If you can't - stay away (i.e. hold).

Yes i concur.

They are not exactly sending tanks against each other.
There is one side, who wants the price to go down, there is another side who wants the price to go up. They are not all working against each other trying to reach thousand of different goals. Someone might be your ally today and your enemy tomorrow.
"The market can handle it", is just a stupid statement, that means nothing.  If someone would drop some atomic bombs on the USA, "the market" could also handle that.

Read the article on CCN, I'm actually friend with of the contributors there.

I don't see any quantitative evidence? Can someone explain to me the manipulation that's going on please, because I don't understand

That's where we are headed.

I remember seeing a picture that said:

"Where we're going - We won't have to exchange back to USD or CNY"

Thats the point of a currency!

Stock market exchange is not peer to peer. It is regulated by the country government and the country central banks as well as profitability of the companies.

Bitcoin is not regulated by one entity or one bank or one exchange (Mtgox) anymore. It is purely based on supply and demand from people all over the world.

As much as I would like this to happen I'm not sure we'll see it within our lifetime. The most we can probably hope for is bitcoin to co-exist alongside fiat.

Ah, we'll all survive though.