Bitcoin Forum

If you've spent some time in Bitcoin community, you'd notice that during most price discussions people will mention how the price is being manipulated by some mysterious entities, that major trends like rallies, ATH and bear market are caused directly by them, that every time price goes down it's because the whales are dumping to get cheap coins, and every time the price goes high, it's the whales who pump it to then crash the market and reap their profits.

Do you believe in this explanation of price movements? Do you know any solid proofs that the price is majorly influenced by whales? Or maybe you think that their influence is overestimated and the price movement is the result of the masses? Share your opinion!

I believe they use every tiny bit of FUD to trigger panic sell.

There was a study that strongly suggested that price manipulation happened in Mt. Gox on late 2013:

https://tylermoore.utulsa.edu/jme17.pdf

That's probably just about as solid a proof you can get without an explicit confession from the offending party.

Bitcoin's price is likely much harder to manipulate nowadays, but I personally believe that some forms of manipulation are still going on. I have no idea about their extent though. I don't have any proof, but I feel that the market being unregulated along with the uneven distribution of wealth makes it an appealing target for those with resources.

There are many ways in which whales can manipulate price. The fiat overlods have the printing machines, they can just print, buy, sell at will, they don't even need to touch the underlying asset, just use the conveniently recently allowed CME futures.

They also have control of the media. They say Bitcoin is banned, price plummets, they load on cheap coins, then they unban it again and you are left with no coins seeing the price go up.

Bitcoin whales can also manipulate via funding of media and practices such as massive fake orders.

They do it in stock market, they can also do it here in crypto as you can see there ain't much different here. pump and dump are usual business of these rich traders. If you are just ready enough to store your money in USD and then wait for the right timing as they do, you might get the max profit too.

Yes, but not the kind of whale that is portrayed here.

I doubt that the idealistic whale, which joined bitcoin very early, and who truly believe in the tech, have been responsible for these dumps. They are being painted as the culprit, so that people are led to believe that the tech is worthless, and that even its earliest adopters are getting rid of it.

The whale that I imagine is the kind that joined the market in 2014, that is, hedge funds. These institutional investors are the ones that place bets in futures markets, and they try what they can to manipulate the price and close their positions in futures, which are leveled. They dont need most of the supply for this manipulation, only most of what is on the exchanges. However, for each fund betting on shorts, theres one betting on longs, which believe in the tech, so we cant throw these institutional investors all in the same bucket.

The real culprit are the exchanges. Most of the volume is not on them, but on cold storage. However, the price is manipulated through them. Mechanisms to block such crashes should be implemented, but nobody is talking about it, because "muh freedom". According to some idealists, freedom to have our asses raped by the banks is more important than a healthy market, where everybody can join in.

Of course. The person with the largest willy initiates the largest moves. Who else was it going to be? It doesn't even need to be the largest, just the most committed.

They also know that the market is filled with bots and twitchy kiddies all looking to pile in to any direction anyone's willing to indicate.

Yeap it seem controlled by whales because;
1. Marketcap is comparatively really low so few billionaires can manipulate entire crypto market
2. Most of the bitcoins are in the hand of early investors who can therefore easily move the market
3. Many newbies are trading crypto who get manipulated easily with just few big orders so yes whole market can be manipulated.

Well, there's recent research that supports a correlation between social media sentiment and Bitcoin's price (with further details to discover some possible room for causation), but it's probably also important to note that most of these whales aren't actually active on social media (or bitcointalk), at least, not regarding price action and speculation.

The research actually sees that the effect of these are amplified with their rarity of participation. So guys like us who discuss it a lot have less impact than a guy who comes out every now and then to say something.

Do I believe it? Yes. Does it matter? Not really. I'm a holder and a long-term believer.

to some extend yes.

and i say it because i have witnessed cases that i can not explain any other way but calling them whale manipulation.
for example when price was $10k and the market sentiment was not negative at all and price had a tendency to stay above it and even rise more. by that time we kept seeing big sell orders take place. for example price went up a little but a big dump took place in 1-3 orders that crashed it. and that  continued until price successfully went below the strong buy support at $10k.
what i saw on exchanges can not be explained other than whale manipulation.

but of course when the initial dump is done and price is successfully broken the market will do the rest. the other investors trying to "stop loss" and get their money ready for buy back, the panic sellers panic selling!....

Nope because every investors blindly make up higher identity to blame when the price is decreasing, look for them when the price is high they won’t recognise any obvious factor either.


They can’t produce any solid evidence that this is true, the mainstream media is using this statement to disappoint or discourage more investors. No other reason.


Price movement result always depend on the masses demand and supply.

There are many examples of manipulation attempts with various methods like spoofing, social media presence with hired posters, paid jouranlists, insider trading and so on, so I don't think that anyone would deny the facts of manipulation on this market. But what really matters is the magnitude of this manipulation, and it seems like no one has a good answer to that.


Yes, I think it's wise to start with the Occam's Razor and assume that the price is genuine, instead of attributing every single price movement to manipulation. Statements about possible manipulation should be backed by at least some evidence or reasoning, instead of simple "it went up/down, so it must be the work of whales".

Yes, not just the bitcoin but the entire crypto market is manipulated by whales. But if this market does not have the appearance of whales, I believe that the current BTC price is only about $ 100-200

There is some element of truth to this idea, but not in the "conspiracy theory" sense that some people cater to.

While market makers and liquidity providers are generally seen as trading and profiting from both sides of the spread, there's a bit more to it. They are absorbing supply in declines and demand in rallies. They are therefore building long and short positions at respective ends of the trading range. Trading ranges are extremely profitable for market makers.

In some sense, this could be seen as propping up or putting a lid on markets (and it happens in all markets, not just Bitcoin). But the truth is, at some point strong supply or demand comes in and runs them over. And that leaves the MMs chasing price, caught out of position. That is where strong trends are born.

So I would say: No, whales are not dumping for "cheap coins" in any significant sense. But there are entities with very large accounts who can keep the market irrational long enough to make us retail traders insolvent. One way they do so is selling heavily into margin buying during relief rallies in a downtrend. They do so with the intent of closing into their long liquidations far below, weeks and months down the road.

I think to a certain extent the market is manipulated but at some point in a bearish market people shorting get liquidated & sentiment turns bullish & a reversal begins. There’s nothing they can do about it then. 

The masses have buggered off home. And in reality most of the masses were buying off exchange on places like Coinbase, Etoro and Localbitcoins. There aren't all that many who would've wound up on an actual exchange filling order books.

Exchanges, where the actual prices are set, are largely the territory of the big players we love to moan about.

Half of the whale and manipulator beliefs is shit. Because people do not understand the market dynamics they always blame the whales for sudden decreases and increases.

it has always been like that and it has never changed, those who manage a huge amount of bitcoins are the ones who sadly control the market