Bitcoin Forum

This Bullshit aint the work of an aggregate market.

This is just a few players with the power to defy all time learned principles of market mechanics, in order to deprive the maximum of unsuspecting punters of their USD and Bitcoins, but mostly USD.

This market is fucked.

Or it's as true as can possibly be as there are no limits on how people can act. Either way it's not very helpful. The only thing that can sort it out properly is a tsunami of true demand. That's likely to continue to be scared away by the actions of the few.

Well, that alone, has proven to me that it is futile trying to read these markets, sure it might work, but market indicators and all the most meticulous TA in the world are like a straw fence standing against the steam roller of a whale's whim.

Had the whale who initiated that pump to $356 on Stamp earlier not immediately dumped right afterwards, then the market would be shooting up right now. The whole thing on Stamp was done within a couple of minutes, the pump, the dump, a pause, and then about 10 minutes later, the panic sell-offs, no doubt from the victims who had their Stop Buys activated in the channels above the consolidation triangle. The other markets all quickly followed suit, but stopped and paused on the dump, and then followed Stamp down on the panic sell off. Despite what any technical indicator points towards, all that is required to send this market hurtling in either direction is a whale to move in and pump, or dump, and these events tonight prove that beyond any reasonable doubt.

Where this market goes, is entirely down to the discretion of very few players, and that is not a comforting thought to any small time investor.

As if the 3 day pump to $500, and crash back down to $300 wasn't enough, this single action has emphatically underlined the fact for me that these markets are just not to be traded. People say that Forex is a feeding pool for sharks, but I bet you that nothing even close to the bullshit we see in Bitcoin happens on Forex...currency markets are just far too huge.

I don't understand why you are complaining. The reason why price "crashed" down to $300 is because there was a huge upmove that there was absolutely no support until the ~$300 area.

This move wasn't caused by a large group of shorts being squeezed it was caused by real money traders buying from the $250 area all the way up to $500. It had to pullback at some point.

If $300 breaks, then I would worry and complain.

The reason why price went back down is because there is huge resistance and supply at the $350 area and today there aren't many market participants because its the weekend.

One whale alone can't move the market past $500. Don't trade on weekends with no liquidity.

An unpredictable market would make it more realistic not less.  If everyone knows whats going to happen thats when the dynamic is probably false.    Seems any normal market is one guy trying to get one over someone else for a profit, thats plain simple capitalism and yet a useful price is found for all market participants and its still more positive then fixed or controlled prices like a government system creates

So long as most news is kept open and known to all then its fine, if theres any false accounting or giant reserves of bitcoins somewhere (or hidden buying as China has used with T-bills and gold) then we're in trouble

This is also known as the Efficient Market Hypothesis.

Ugh, you started trading again ?

If your in bitcoin market for long time then you should be knowing that these bitcoins are not backed by any big institutions or governments. So it is easily manipulated by any big players so you should take the opportunity to sell when prices are high and if you had made some decent profits. If you target for very high price then you should go through all these fluctuations. Definitely the recent up move was to trap new people into bitcoin.

SSS+buyback on dips. Doesn't matter which way the market goes with that strategy.

Is this something you just found out?  :D The market hasn't been anything other than unpredictable and manipulated since its existance. As traders I can't complain at all. There is plenty of room for profit throughout the years with Bitcoin.

If you really believe so, then deal with it.  Stop using leverage, and stop trading short-term movements.  If it is manipulated far below "fair value", buy BTC, if it is manipulated far above "fair value" sell BTC.  The End.  Simple.

(disclaimer: being a somewhat degenerate speculator, I won't follow this advice though.  Also because I think the amount of manipulation is probably not that high.)

The reason it went crashing back down, was because the whale pushed Bitcoin high enough to trigger a bunch of Stop Orders, into which he would no doubt have been mass selling and when that burst had run out of juice, he dumped the remainder of what he had acquired from the pump.

There may well be large resistance at $350, but it would have been broken through, had this whale had the desire to see the market go that way. The big players can pretty much manipulate this market anyway they want, sell where they want, and buy where they want. Bitcoin is a trading shark's wet dream.

I mean the move was nothing more than market makers clearing the way for their next move.

They've ran the numbers and that move is what they needed to execute their next strategy.

One incision here and it's off to the races.

They just reorienting the table in the way that works for their next move.

That is it. You made a wrong move and got screwed over. The market is fine, as volatile as it has ever been with Bitcoin. Very simple trading rule, never sell lower than you bought, even if the price movement scares the shit out of you. Most bad traders give up after a couple weeks or further down movement. This is wrong. And if you trade with money you don't own and need to get back, don't blame the market. You are the only one to blame.

Really i am a bit disappointed when i check how much cost a bitcoin.
I also think that the market is fake and the chinese people know how to pump/dump the price.
Market is really being manipulated and we know this bad fact :(

Yep.

I learned important lessons about controlling impulse, exercising discipline, keeping emotions out the equation, and done some meticulous TA, and concluded that the market was far more likely to go down, than go up. My first likely resistance point was $315, however, I suspected that wouldn't hold and that the floor will be found more in the $280 zone. The more I looked at the charts, the more I became convinced of a correction....so I SOLD! I left my computer for a bit, and unfortunately for me, I return just as this whale was pumping. Now, knowing what a vigorous break above a consolidation range normally means, I panic bought, at some $6 more than I orginally sold for, and witnessed the shit that was to follow. So now I am back in Bitcoin, at a higher price than which I exited the market (after having already taken horrendous losses on pump n dump), and totally against the momentum of the market, which I happened to have correctly read.

This recurring theme of reading the market correctly, but somehow not trading it, and then trying to compensate for missing out by placing wrong trades, really fucking pisses me off. So in the end, I resolved to be a hapless holder of Bitcoin, I am not only missing out on this move down, but I am being punished by it, because despite having forecast it correctly on this occasion, the splashes of the whales have frozen me in my tracks, cos I know with these fuckers about, Bitcoin can go in any direction, without any warning, and is totally unpredictable.

I can't reasonably expect to be able to play these markets with all these unpredictable X-Factors hovering around the exchanges, so I am either a holder of Bitcoin long term, or I get the fuck away from it.

I am currently a holder of Bitcoin, and am now watching the market do, what I predicted it was going to do, before getting all flustered by the whale's splashes and reversing my position, and I can tell you, after having lost the amount of Fiat I have lost allowing emotions to taint my market outlook, it is fucking galling having to witness this, again.

Incidentally, Bitcoin needs 'traders' in order to provide liquidity. If the whales continue to scare traders away, then their aint no liquidity, except for them. That isn't a healthy market and not a market which is likely to grow. As in other markets, I think the Bitcoin exchanges need to make it public knowledge, who is making trades on their platforms, that way, we can see who is doing the big buying and selling, and we can see when there is blatant market moulding going on.

i.e. Entity A, erects Massive Bid Wall, 5 minutes later, entity A devours own Bid Wall. !0 minutes later, Entity A erects massive Ask Wall, etc etc....that kind of shit needs to be transparent.

Actually, I'd say that this is the exact OPPOSITE of an Efficient Market.  In an efficient market, news and events are equally available to all and all factors are priced int at any given point in time.  Bitcoin is an inefficient market.  Information is asymmetrical.  There are market makers and bigger players who can manipulate or at least influence prices.

We don't have equal and symmetrical information about the ASSET, even, as there are no 10K's or 10Q's.  Prices are not based on underlying fundamentals such as earnings or revenues. 

Spaceman_Spiff says:


This is EXACTLY right.  It's the only way to be involved.  You better have some method of figuring out what the "fair value" is to you.  Personally, I do it based on money supply.  I've made some estimates of usage and velocity for the year 2020, then I discount it back to present value (at a pretty aggressive discount rate, I might add, because there is a lot of risk).  I buy if it's below and sell if it's above.  I should add that bitcoin has a tendency to overcorrect massively, so I buy when I think bitcoin is about 30% BELOW vuduchyld's "fair value" and I sell when I think it's 30% above.

Oh, and finally, you have to realize this is a speculation, not an investment.  Use the appropriate piece of your portfolio reserved for high-risk and hopefully high-reward plays.
 

 

How can this be suprise? After 1 year of analysing i stopped following the analyze 'guru's' with their fibonacci etc.

It is manipulated > yes
Is that bad > no

With every price rise more and more people get into bitcoin. And now it is just about waiting...

If only 1 multinational will 'do' something with bitcoin others will follow and more people will adopt it. Hence the market will be supply & demand without big whales making the market.

I dunno, there are some pretty sharp cookies out there.....there is a dude called Brian Beamish for one, who has a very good track record of calling Bitcoin......but did I listen to him when the top was in? Did I listen to him when he suggested a retracement to the long term 61.8% Fib level before he would even consider going long Bitcoin again? Did I listen to him when he posted  on twitter whether they were really going to take this back down to $300 (http://"https://twitter.com/CRInvestor/status/663593524101644288")?

Nope!

Did I fuck. During the pump n dump, I went from being an early investor and early proft taker, to FOMO merchant, and watched substantial gains turn to substantial losses, and I was bag holding, and I was blocking out my anguish with copious doses of hopium, which was clouding mv outlook.

However, in Bitcoin especially, Fib retracements and Gann support/resitance lines really do seem to hold. Yesterday when I went net short, before being frightened back into market (at a loss) by this whale and his bullshit activity, I had first zone of resistance on the anticipated drop at $315. This was based on both Fib and Gann supports. If that doesn't hold, then it is back down to ~$280, where if we are in a bull market, support definitely will hold around this area. If we go there, we will likely get a puncture right through this support, before a strong rebound up to the $280 support level, which will hold. How to determine whether the market is more likely to go down to test support or go up to test resistance, is best determined using momentum indicators and gauging where the balance of probabilty lies. This is what I done, and decided that the balance of probability was a test of lower support levels, and it turns out I was right, except in between then and now, was that fucking whale on Bitstamp and my impulse reactionary response to what I thought was the market defying all expectation, and breaking up.

Go open up a BTC chart on Trading View. Go and look at any part of Bitcoins trading history, take significant highs and lows, and apply Fib and Gann to them. You may be astonished with how so many significant market turning points occur in the zones pin pointed by the Fib and Gann drawings.

As for right now, For a short term trader, Bitcoin is a no trade in my view. We have already had most of the downside momentum, but there is still room for more. For a long term investor, Bitcoin is still in a no buy zone for the same reasons. If it gets down to mid-upper $200s, then that is a definite buy, and will be where the pumpers and dumpers load up their lorries. For a stupid fucking bag holding, profit squandering, loss realising tosser like me, Bitcoin is a sit and hold and take the short term pain, cos in the long run, it is good until at least $750......although I will no doubt be back to trading soon enough, chopping and changing my mind at the least little quirk in the market, pissing $$$ all over the floor in my usual style.

That is not trading at that point, its investment and you have to risk that the loss may be total which is possible with anything.   Trading will sell at a loss as and when the original premise is no longer true, that typically a short term rise has not occured.    What he might do is consider options of some kind, which is risk but capped off to certain set gains and losses.  Total risk, never selling, hodl or however its put is step in the wrong direction except with really small amounts especially on a personal investor who cannot write off the losses over six years like limited company may

Welcome to the world of unregulated currency trading.

OP, you sound rather conflicted. Is it whales splashing, or is it amenable to TA? Pick a thesis and stick. It can't be both.

One theory is that Bitcoin is a new asset class somewhere between a currency and a hard-money commodity, ultimately to capture a large share of the world's store of value. If indeed this be true, the only globally useful aspect of trading is in price discovery for this new monetary asset. Chaotic churn should be expected in such a case - whether or not whales are moving markets. TA -- being based upon market heuristics driven by crowd psychology from extrapolations from other asset classes -- is likely to be fully inapplicable.

If your trading strategies are not working, you may need a new strategy. If you believe in the long-term success of bitcoin, a workable strategy might be to buy as much as you can afford today, and hodl as long as you can stand it -- as in years.

Both.

But one cannot rely on TA when there are motherfucking whales swimming around the exchanges, as they can turn everything on it's head at the click of a finger.....and it would be naive to assume that a good proportion of the market movers don't have perfect market knowledge, in terms of where all the other little fishies are placing their bets.

Yeah, it never made any sense to me believing the fairy tale of technical analysis. Just because a figure may represent itself in the future given past performance, doesn't guarantee that it will. The big players can pump and dump at any second giving you a ridiculously long candle and you better hope is not red. Just buy and HOLD.

Exactly my point. It can't be both.

To return to OP's opening salvo... fake? WTF does 'fake market' mean? It's a market, whether you like the parameters or not. If you have proof of endemic front-running or similar, I could concur with fake. But 'unpredictable' != 'fake'.

A fake market would be figuring out that a front running exchange has been lying about volume and price to get people into gold-rush mode.
Then faking a market crash so people would be anxious to get out. Then keeping the difference for yourself :)

Hey this sounds like MtGOX only they screwed up doing this  :-\

Bitcoin isn't an investment. There. Done. Kind of.. :-\

I don't buy emh for bitcoin at all.  There is basically no way to truly value it, no earnings or dividends, etc.  It's purely speculative.  It's a global craps table!

This is why I advise (especially for newbs) against stops and limit orders.  This is likely how they shake people from their positions

Your logic is flawed. No real markets are predictable.

If Bitcoin price was predictable, then I would believe that the market was fake. The very fact that it is not predictable means that it is working efficiently.

If lots of people wake up one day and decide to buy Bitcoin, then the price goes up. If more people want to sell, it goes down. It's as simple as that. You can't predict what the masses will do at any given point in time.

Show me any market - stocks, bonds, commodities, etc. - that is predictable. None of them are.

It is to me. Keep your dogma to yourself, it is whatever people treat it as.

Mat has a need to complain. A need for drama. No point looking for any deeper meaning, some people are just that way.

Bitcoin cost money to make. There is your value.

I hate to burst the speculation bubble of everyone on here but TA is pretty much as useful as astrology: you can draw fucking conclusion from the position of the sun, mars, and venus and predict the price to rise tomorrow, but guess what, you have no fucking clue. I know there's a lot of hardcore TA people on here, and yes sometimes it works, but nobody can have perfect TA.

^^^^^^Agree 100%.  TA is completely nutty.  FA is useful but I don't believe it can be applied to bitcoin for the reasons I gave above.

That's why from the very beginning most people are always stating that you should never, ever go all-in in bitcoin as it is NOT the same market in which you can apply all those TA aspects and strats to at least get a 'hint' of what's coming. The movements in this market are more manipulated rather than organic, that is what I observed in over a year of trading using bitcoins.

Hmm.....

I don;t think that bitcoin is a bad coin, it is a good innovation but the bad thing is that it is very much manipulated (so much pump and dumps)

Mat, you should consider writing a book about your bitcoin trading. It is awkwardly enjoyable to read about your recent trades and all this emotional clusterfuck. :D

who else do you think was behind the $2200 buy on gemini ;D

Yes....but this was different. This was a clear break up from the consolidation formation. When this happens, 9/10 times it is followed by a significant upswing, so I had to act. Unfortunately, it was just some whale on Stamp who knew where all the Stop Buys where, robbing people blind, before he attempted to push the market down further....

....and now we have the 'epic battle of $320', where around 14K BTC worth of volume was traded on Stamp as ostensibly one whale kept dropping massive bombs into the Bid Wall, whilst another kept buying them up....or was it just one player? I suspect it was just one player, so what kind of statement is he now trying to make? Was that massive support combating the massive selling pressure meant to underline that at $320, the market stops falling?




Unfortunately it is also very bad for my health, and my financial well being.

when you have a 4B marketcap with something that should have the same market cap of gold, you know that you get something like this, a manipulated market

every single one of these groups or entity that hold those 100k coins in the top rich list, can easily manipulate any exchange with their 250k volume in btc....

The market will be way harder to manipulate once we are a couple billion dollars above what we are now... I think a 50 billion dollar market is hard enough to manipulate for whales unless all those whales decide to join up and act in sync which is hard.

Exactly this! We are like a small inflatable boat on the ocean full of waves! What do you expect will be happening. Rocky rides are guaranteed. The same is with Bitcoin.

When we get to the size of a big tanker market cap wise, the rides will be much smoother as well. Imagine if we had just 10 times bigger market cap of around $40 billion!

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you may have had a lot of success in other markets. However.... this is different.

Bitcoin ain't a stock, and it ain't a currency, and it ain't a commodity. Further, the players against which you trade are not the same players from these other markets.

As long as you persist in using lessons learned in other markets, you are likely to experience further disconnect - both cognitive and financial.

cat finger...

this does not explain why, as is why not make it go up 0.5-1% a day instead so your coins appreciate faster.
Currently, banks give $$ loans using stock as collateral. If btc is stable or goes up 0.5-1% a day, i can foresee bancks giving loans based on your btc holdings, but no one in their sane mind should take or give $ loans if it is $500 one day and $300 a week later or vice versa.

http://memesvault.com/wp-content/uploads/Sad-Cat-Middle-Finger-08.jpg

 ???

So many great comments in this thread. Bitcoin is small and volatile. Trade accordingly. Like this:

The rules of the market are always the same - supply vs. demand.

Now how those market forces are engaged is completely up to what's going  on in the market. So yea, someone with a ton of BTC can flood the market and  the price will go down. Or someone can decided to buy a ton of bitcoin and the price will go up.

It's not manipulation in the bad sense, it's market forces working correctly.

How did the last run up and fall hurt you? It seems you're feeling that you've gotten screwed somehow.

because they(those strong guys with plenty of coins) want to maintain a certain level of value for every new pump, by letting the newbies investors increasing the price, and not increasing it with their money

What does SSS stand for, and how does it work? I found some links about an SSS forex indicator through Google but I couldn't find a simple explanation of what it was. There were multiple different indicators, all with the SSS acronym, including the Forex Super Strong Signal Indicator, and X-Man's Super Simple System.

I'm guessing the responder was referring to rpietila's SSS (Super Simple System?). How it works:

1) figure out if you are a belieber in bitcoin. If not, this system is not for you

2) buy as much bitcoin as you can possibly afford, as long as you won't kill yourself if you lose it all

3) figure out your personal coefficients for A and B (see step 4)

4) every time bitcoin rises by A%, sell B% of your bitcoin

5) enjoy a prosperous life

6) there is no step 6

Do you guys think market manipulation could be involved in Bitcoin's unpredictability.

Bitcoin is very predictable because the supply and demand are very constant.
The only unpredictability is the people trading and mining bitcoin and not bitcoin itself.

It isn't only market manipulation, it is also our trust in Bitcoin
- Bitcoin is young and hasn't been around like normal money.
- Bitcoin is being traded by different cultures around the world with different trading ideologies.

There is a supply vs demand thing, but it is not influencing the price.

For sure there are some big whales company whom are dependant and benefit by this volatility. I expect that those whales eventually will lose their monopoly and the real market will have it's way.

Just wait till a multinational steps in, there is no way those whales can compete with 1 or 2 multinationsl.

Personally I'm a big fan of Bitcoin's volatility.  There are good places to profit with volatility.  Trading in the vast majority of standard stocks are not even close to as interesting.

Bitcoin is also open to manipulation, sure. But the manipulation is open to every one :)   For many established securities and traditional investments only the banks and other big players can manipulate it.  Bitcoin offers manipulation to the masses haha :).

Besides, the chaos is fun.

I've bought bitcoin as low as $10 a coin and sold as high as a $1000. And all in just a very few years. That's amazing. That's chaos, but I like it.

And after I have, on many occasions, made a successful trade for 10% more coins in the space of week (or even a day) it just makes me laugh to consider most people in North America invest in vehicles that pay them 5% a YEAR. Like what a joke, 5% a year is just around the level of inflation.

The risk is greater, the potential for loss or reward is greater. I'd take this any day over a typical mutual fund.

In short, bring on the chaos. It's really quite something. It's as interesting because we are still very much in the early stages; the wild west.  

I think if people had taken the time to think about back then, the most likely conclusion that they could come to is that following a massive run up, there has to be a massive sell off.

However the probability of that happening coupled with the potential profit that could be made trying to trade it vs the risk of being caught out means the smart thing to do is just hold, don't fear the paper loss, and gradually accumulate within your means (don't spend what you can't afford to lose).

I think if people take the time to think about it now the most likely conclusion is that following a long bear market there is probably going to be a massive run up.

The probability of that happening coupled with the potential profit that could be made holding and skimming off vs the risk of selling early and being caught out means the smart thing to do is to just hold, and gradually sell off a small percentage at regular intervals.

This has always been the case. Boring as hell, and all the kids make fun of you because "YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD" but pit pat piffy wing wong wang always loses in the end.

Let people think and say whatever they want. People who really appreciate Bitcoin and its future potential will hold their coins no matter what. A lot people say;  'Holding Bitcoin is boring because it barely gives you a return'

These kind of people are just stupid. How can you expect Bitcoin to give you a 50%-100% return on your investment in just 2 weeks..... They are chasing some quick profits, but they don't realize that they can have huge profits if they hold their coins for the very long term. If Bitcoin really takes off, and true believers do think it will, then current prices are nothing more than a joke.

Bitcoin is extremely illiquid compared to any respectable stock, but it's still too liquid for 99% of holders to move the price without mass action. Manipulation is only accessible to a small number.

Exactly. If it doesn't? then the worst case scenario is you only lost the principal that you should already have mentally written off.

Nothing in this world is predictable.

No matter how many positive or negative reviews there are, no one can predict the future so it is with Bitcoin. All are just chances.  8)

In short term, the price is unpredictable. In long term, the price will go up. Just do not buy at the top of every pump.

It's a chance you take with any investments that you make. Sometimes you win some and sometimes you lose some.

Going from $200 to $500 is a huge, I never expected it to stay at $500. $300 is a reasonable growth for this year.

Japanese Yen since 1992 ?
Argentine Peso ?
Asian currency crisis of the late 1990's ?
Russian RBL this year ?
Greek-bond monkeybusiness since 2010 ?

Now MatTheCat, how much did you bet and from where may I collect a truckload of bitcoins or gold ? (I'll take either thank-you)

Once the long term holders, and there are plenty, get a hold of enough coins its only going up. This will take a while yet. The halving will help and the next one in 4 1/2 years is the big one. Until then the holders will keep buying and eventually nobody will sell below $500, then $1,000. I'd give it 5-10 years till $1,000 is the floor, but once this happens its never going below that ever again. From there it will go to a $2,000-$5,000 floor much faster. I wouldn't count on that for at least 10 more years.

There are some serious long term holders and the supply is reasonably limited, so one day nobody will be selling below a certain price anymore. Right now that price is $200. I can say for sure that nobody will ever sell coins below $200 again, and if they do they will get bought up over $200 within days. This will take quite some time, but one day the hoarders will own the market.

No. You know there's this new thing the kids are doing, called "fact checking"? (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitfinexUSD#rg90zigDailyzczsg2014-12-30zeg2015-01-02ztgSzbgEza1gEMAzm1g200za2gEMAzm2g365zl) Finex closed just above 320 on 31 December, ditto for Stamp.

I don't think it's possible to manipulate a market of this size without a capital of millions of dollars unlike minor alternative cryptocurrencies, and even if there was a player this big in BTC it would be a risk to them as well as they wouldn't be sure of the reaction of the market to their pump.

i dont think that the whole market is fake i must admit that sometimes the price might be affected by whales and that the price is unpredictable but its ok for me

The market isn't fake. Go out on an exchange and buy bitcoin with real dollars...

That being said, the market is manipulated by some very big whales. Their attention could be; attention; profit or something else.

In a few years when there are more supporters, this game will be over.

Manipulation is big with bitcoin, i can't disagree on that. But let's be fair it's in most of the markets where whales are present. Perhaps it is jealousy since we are no whales and can't do anyting then to speculate..

Like stock market, the price will go up or down all the time. When there is good news, the price might go down. It is unpredictable.

If the price can stay above $350 by the end of the year, it is excellent. In the meanwhile, the price volatility should also stay low.

When the price of bitcoin increase to $10,000, the price will be more stable. It is difficult for whales to move the price.

Bitcoin is as real as any market out there.
The bitcoin market is unpredictable, like you said but that doesn't mean that it's fake at all.
Know what you get yourself into before stepping foot in it.

For the exchanges which charge fees, the volume is probably real. So the 0% fee exchanges, the volume is fake.

The exchanges aren't fake.

The same market mechanics observed with stocks or forex avail to BTC on a relatively liquid exchange like BFX.

As with the stock market, the bitcoin market requires expensive infrastructure.  Someone has to pay for it.

There is a stochastic component to the price behavior, and it is such that it maximizes revenue extraction to keep the infrastructure going.

If you understand how market structure develops, you can avoid being the steady funder of the infrastructure, and let other unwary traders be the beast of burden.

 
 

Actually, the event which caused me to start this thread, was far worse than the Bitfinex bot conspiring to push the market up to trigger my stop (which proves to me that much of the volume on these exchanges is padding, otherwise it would have been far too expensive to run market up for paltry little handful of BTC from my own trade, and probably just a few other traders with same idea..may as well post this again:

http://i67.tinypic.com/28jd0lg.png


When I started this thread. Some whale had just ramped Bitstamp, up to a point where a whole bunch of Stop Buy orders were placed, just above the 'breakout' point. BTC on Stamp spiked from $325 up to $355 in a matter of a few minutes. The other exchanges followed but the whale on Stamp then dumped it right back down and killed the move. What this basically is, is some Stamp whale, who has both access to the order book, and front running privileges to the exchange, to ensure that his sell orders are the ones that get filled first when he ramps, and triggers the Stop Buys that he can see all placed up above the $345 level.

This is corrupt at the very least, and whilst these are unregulated exchanges, I would imagine that their is some Anti Fraud law that would also make this illegal, just as the Finex bot swiping any customers Stop Orders within easy touching distance of spot in order to fund the super expensive exchange infrastructure, will also be illegal.

you realize that if the market was predictable, that would mean its fake... right?

Exactly. I don't do a lot of stock trading but it seems the managed markets will freeze trading on a stock when it starts to plummet to quickly but there is no such manipulation of bitcoin.

I don't doubt what you said about Bitstamp, maybe this is why Gemini has low volume? They jumped through all the hoops to get regulated, and whales who can't cheat the system have little incentive to trade there?

in fact on the forex market, the pairs are alot more predictable, i bet there is a greater manipulation there than in bitcoin

they basically play everytime in the same range, with some time few shift on the up or down range, i've seen it immediately, in the few weeks that i traded with bitcoin on a broker

If the market move can be predictable than we can say it as a fake movement and trading volume. But if it is unpredicatable like right now we have to say market is true. So you are wrong LOL

I think the stock market is also not predictable. The price volatility is very big recently. Shall we call that fake market?

No market is fake. It's just big whales, white sharks small fishes and dolphins in the same pool.

Manipulation (what you call fake) is part of a free market. It is what constitues a 'free' market. The only difference between all these participants is access to intelligence (information) and the capabilities of providing (mis-)information to other market participants.

If you understand these few things, you also will understand, why Bitcoin and the blockchain were described by The Economist as a 'truth machine' - and why this may become enormously important in the future.

I don't even understand what you mean by "fake"

People buy and others sell. That's the definition of a market. That would be fake if you wouldn't receive anything you buy/sell, but you do.

It's not because you lost lots of money that it becomes "fake".

Now whats going on is the real situation of the bitcoin. If the bitcoin price is in the rising chart we won't indicate the market is fake.
Just the market is just because of few countries trade or investment. The entire world countries have the part in which few will be
experiencing growth even this time. some countries might be losing currency value as like our bitcoin.

It is not that it is unpredictable, it just reacts to everything. That is why it is hard to predict sometimes, you need to read movement behind the curtain.
Bitcoin market is sensitive to information that we have a little access to, for example you need to be reading Chinese's news sites and be familiar with global economic trends.
 

Everyday nearly 2 million BTC is traded on Huobi which equals to 740 million dollars with current BTC price.

740 million dollars. On a single exchange. In a single day. I don't know how can you guys who say it's not fake can explain this but it doesn't look real at all to me.

There is no need to argue about it. Everybody on the Earth knows that is the fake. If Huobi charges 0.1% fee, the volume is be a few thousands.

95% of Huobi' volume, you and I can't even touch...it happens in another dimension....500 BTC bids and trade executions just flash up out of nowhere and then vanish just as quick.

I would dare a 'real' trader of BTC to take a 500 Market Buy or Sell order to Huobi, and just see how deep the liquiditiy there really is.

Yeah but it's different saying that Huobi is faked (such as everything from China) and that the whole btc market is fake ^^

But the Chinese drive BTC.

When Huobi moves, the rest of the market jumps right into line behind it. The exception to this rule is the cashout dump. That is when the Chinese BTC Cowboys, move thier BTC from China, to USD exchange, and dump into the market.

The recent pump n dumps were an exception however. Both pump, and then the dump, were triggered by enormous volume coming in right out of the blue on Bitfinex, with the rest of the markets following.

So on this occasion, it would be both fair and accurate to say that the whole BTC market was moved by an entity operating through Bitfinex, who has knowledge of their Order books, and has front running access to their trading API......

......so how is that not 'fake'?

(except millions of USD worth of real Short Positions where liquidated on rise, and millions of USD of real Long Positions were liquidated on the way back down to beneath the very base for the whole pump)

Wow. I am not an expert of such kind of market but this post make me feel like you have lost all your wealth ultimately in this market and want to destroy not only it but all the world. Maybe you will have all the rights of this world to be so if someone have stolen you that but seems like you have played yourself that what you have lost. And if so, I think that, a little, the guilty is even you.  ;)  Anyhow, according to my totally inexpert opinion, cannot be possible that all the usd-bitcoin market be manipulable by a bunch of people. Cannot be so few people so powerful. Or even that cannot be possible that all that few bunch of people who you pretend that manipulate this market make such deal together and realize such kind of entrepreneurship. Seems a little futuristic. But it is not strange that me have wrong. Have not the needed knowledge about it and cannot be credible with my words. Mine is only a reasoning from out of the environment. And as such a amateur one.

What did you say?IS NOT A FAKE. I agree with you is not predictable , but not that bad what it seems.

Well size aint everything.  Throwing virtual figures around the confines of an exchange computer like a squash court is not the best demo.    Maybe if you want to compare it to flash trading computers done on NYSE it might make sense, they own each Company stock maybe $100,000 or more for less then half a second, then they sell it.  Then they buy it again 1000th of a cent cheaper, then sell it again.    Does this convince me of that companies strength that day, no doesnt really mean anything except noise

Why you think like that I dont agree with you market is great thing and Bitcoin is always was unpredictable

Well, to each, his own. The market is manipulated by whales lol. Unpredictable? For us minnows swimming around without going deeper, yes. But for whales who usually controls the waves and the tides with their movements, the bitcoin market is nothing but a playground for them to get even fatter.

The price is unpredictable for the bitcoin. But it is not different from other commodities. The copper has dropped a lot.

For some professional traders, they can make a lot of money from the market volatility. For us, we will make a loss.

A free market in theory should have a purpose for traders in that they even out the peaks and troughs to the price so that regular participants can proceed with less risk.  That is the ironic positive component to free capitalism, its competetive and open to all.    Socialists totally miss that point that a fair race is beneficial; so yea tons of money to be made but only while engaging risk and providing some evening out of supply and demand so we arent all like scared men on a boat sliding from one side to the other aiding a capsise and loss of business opportunity

tl;dr market aint fake, this is normal for the wild west of finance

In the trading, it is zero or negative sum game. Because we have to pay trading fees. Very few will win in the end.

of course bitcoin is not stable, it was unpredictable from it's begining, just wait few years, it should be stable then, just keep your bitcoins for year, sell them and be happy

The bitcoin price is unpredictable. It is the real face of bitcoin and the same only attracts more users towards it. When bitcoin gets a fixed value more people will get out of it.

The price of bitcoin is too volatile. That is the reason I do not trade it. I cannot find the high and low point of bitcoin.

Yes because trading in a flat-line horizontal market makes much more sense!

What is this for some bullshit.
Trading is all about volatility.
Without it there are not profits to make.

Just buy when you're afraid, and sell when they announce the news or when you're exited. Simple as that...

What do you expect?. that the price will just go for a billion dollars?.
Every currency is unpredictable and no one can tell what will be the price is.
If you look at the wall street you will eventually know that none can stick to a stable price.

he said too volatile, not no volatile, in fiat, the volatility is very low, you trade on the tiny spread with very high leverage

here you have low leverage and high spread, so more risk for profit

The coin / asset is still new.
The market is not regulated.
The volumes are not that high.
Some of the exchanges are new businesses, some are established, however, since it's not regulated you cannot know if everybody plays fair.

Yes, there are a lot of uncertainties which make the market highly volatile and not very predictable on long term. This doesn't make it fake.
However, the money flows around. Some lose, some win. It cannot be that everybody wins. It's just cannot be like that.
If you are rich enough to play high volumes, or skilled+informed to foresee correctly the movements, you can make money.

Else it's indeed safer to stay away.

Perfectly said which ever you are trading in commodity or shares or stocks all are unpredictable even good working company share price is also going up or down everything is unpredictable,

even life is also unpredictable when will you die no one can tell.  :)

If you tell this market is fake then all other market are also fake. if anything gets predictable then everyone will become rich and all will buy and keep it and not sell . then what will happen did you guessed ?

Only that there are so many people who are thinking that the price will skyrocket to 4 or even 5 digits without thinking what'll happen in reality. Even if the price gets to $2000, will there be enough buyers for that, will the Sell Orders bring the price down again as people are looking for profit, will the people still buy bitcoin even if its several thousand dollars already while other coins are cheaper, etc. Just some of the things that needs to be looked at as we reach halving.

This is not fake. We can here talk about for what is going to happen and that is good. We can talk with each other and that is good.
I hope that more people will use Bitcoin and ofcourse it is unpredictable.

Well life in unpredictable and its not fake,bitcoin prices will always be unpredictable as many users are using it.
Even miners and traders doesnt know what will the real price be.

Confidence 101: The essential ingredient in every confidence scheme, including such basics as streetcorner shell & Three Card Monte games, is making the mark believe he could win; that he's plenty smart enough and good enough to beat the operator at his own game.

If you can predict the market, you will be billionaire in several months. Of course, the bitcoin is not predictable.

well of course that bitcoin is very very unpredictable and not stable, maybe you're new bitcoin used and don't know but price of bitcoin can change by 50$ in one day, and nobody can predict that, so of course that bitcoin is unpredictable

Absolutely agree,

Is unpredictable so peoples talk about "stable" after certain time period has elapsed not before , Like to price of last months around $400-450.

The price in the last month is very stable as the price is within a tight range of $400 to 450. It is good for mass adoption.

The price is still below $450. It is $445 now. So the bitcoin price is indeed very stable. It will rise soon.

From last last 10 days, the bitcoin price had a mini pump. It was pumped to $468 for a few days and it dropped.

Truly unpredictable, as the price fall has happened suddenly during the continued increase after a long time which none expected. Now small rise is taking place.

Some people want to keep the price down to get more coins. Whenever the price rises to $475, it was sold down.