I don't see any significant amount of Wall Street money anywhere near bitcoin before some serious regulation...
Maybe some small, high-risk funds, but nothing serious (tens of billions or something like that).
They always play safe

Feds don't seem to be doing that either.

How Jarosaw defined fraud:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud

Fraud is a deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain (adjectival form fraudulent; to defraud is the verb). As a legal construct, fraud is both a civil wrong (i.e., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud and/or recover monetary compensation) and a criminal wrong (i.e., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities). Defrauding people or organizations of money or valuables is the usual purpose of fraud, but it sometimes instead involves obtaining benefits without actually depriving anyone of money or valuables, such as obtaining a drivers license by way of false statements made in an application for the same.

A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deception without the intention of gain or of damaging or depriving the victim.

There are higher 'courts' than the ones you speak of

And then, since your definition is based on someone's calculation to mislead who is the final arbtrar of intent?  

Shit if crypto was regulated I think half the users of btce would go to jail.

Pools: "Agreements, often written, among a group of traders to delegate authority to a single manager to trade in a specific stock for a specific period of time and then to share in the resulting profits or losses."[4]
Churning: "When a trader places both buy and sell orders at about the same price. The increase in activity is intended to attract additional investors, and increase the price."
Stock Bashing: "This scheme is usually orchestrated by savvy online message board posters (a.k.a. "Bashers") who make up false and/or misleading information about the target company in an attempt to get shares for a cheaper price. This activity, in most cases, is conducted by posting libelous posts on multiple public forums. The perpetrators sometimes work directly for unscrupulous Investor Relations firms who have convertible notes that convert for more shares the lower the bid or ask price is; thus the lower these Bashers can drive a stock price down by trying to convince shareholders they have bought a worthless security, the more shares the Investor Relations firm receives as compensation. Immediately after the stock conversion is complete and shares are issued to the Investor Relations firm, consultant, attorney or similar party, the basher/s then become friends of the company and move quickly to ensure they profit on a classic Pump & Dump scheme to liquidate their ill gotten shares. (see P&D)"
Pump and dump: "This scheme is generally part of a more complex grand plan of market manipulation on the targeted security. The Perpetrators (Usually stock promoters) convince company affiliates and large position non-affiliates to release shares into a free trading status as "Payment" for services for promoting the security. Instead of putting out legitimate information about a company the promoter sends out bogus e-mails (the "Pump") to millions of unsophisticated investors (Sometimes called "Retail Investors") in an attempt to drive the price of the stock and volume to higher points. After she accomplishes both, the promoter sells her shares (the "Dump") and the stock price falls like a stone, taking all the duped investors money with it."
Runs: "When a group of traders create activity or rumors in order to drive the price of a security up." An example is the Guinness share-trading fraud of the 1980s. In the US, this activity is usually referred to as painting the tape.[5] Runs may also occur when trader(s) are attempting to drive the price of a certain share down, although this is rare. (see Stock Bashing)"
Ramping (the market): "Actions designed to artificially raise the market price of listed securities and to give the impression of voluminous trading, in order to make a quick profit."[6]
Wash trade: "Selling and repurchasing the same or substantially the same security for the purpose of generating activity and increasing the price".
Bear raid: "Attempting to push the price of a stock down by heavy selling or short selling."[7]

Interesting debate guys regarding market manipulation.  I think aminorex's definition below is a good one (regardless of one's views on the ethics of such an activity):


According to this definition, I believe that market manipulation is indeed happening.  The next question is "is this wrong"?  vdcc says this is fraud:


I'm not convinced, but I'd like to hear further arguments.  Here's what I think is fraud:

A whale calls up the owner of an exchange and, says "I want to put up a 5,000 BTC ask wall to scare the fish into selling to me for cheaper, but I don't actually want to risk a bigger whale buying all my coins.  Can I pay you 50 BTC to ensure that if someone tries to buy my wall that your trading engine encounters 'technical difficulties'?"  If the owner agrees, this is fraud and we have laws that would apply in such a situation.  

But if two colluding whales buy and sell to each other on the open market to try and make it appear there is more volume at a price higher or lower than what they believe to be the market price, then could not one argue that this is simply "strategy"?  Is not everyone still playing by the same rules?

Shavers sought to dismiss the charges, arguing that Bitcoins were not the equivalent of money, were not regulated by the United States, and that the BTCST investments did not meet the definition of “securities” to confer jurisdiction with the Commission.  The Commission disputed Shavers’ contentions, arguing that the BTCST investments  were both investment contracts and notes and thus constituted securities.

The Securities Act of 1933 defines a “security” as “any note, stock, treasury stock, security future, security-based swap, bond…[or] investment contract…” 15 U.S.C. § 77b.  An “investment contract” is considered to be a catch-all category for products that do not meet the exact contours of a note, stock, or other specified form of indebtedness.  As federal securities laws have remained largely unchanged since their enactment in the 1930s and 1940s, courts have increasingly had to determine whether a product constituted an investment contract.  The seminal case on this subject is S.E.C. v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946).  In Howey, the U.S. Supreme Court set forth a three-part test to answer this question, holding that

An investment contract is any contract, transaction, or scheme involving (1) an investment of money, (2) in a common enterprise, (3) with the expectation that profits will be derived from the efforts of the promoter or a third party.

In analyzing the Howey factors, Judge Mazzant first found that the BTCST investments constituted an investment of money, noting that Bitcoins could not only be used as money to buy goods and services but also could be exchanged for conventional currencies.  Next , Judge Mazzant determined that there existed a common enterprise since the investors were dependent on Shavers’ purported expertise in Bitcoin markets and local connections, and investors were promised a substantial return from these efforts.  Finally, there was clearly an expectation that profits would be derived through Shavers’ efforts, as investors were induced to invest through the promise of the astronomical returns.  In short, Judge Mazzant concluded that the BTCST investments satisfied the Howey test and could be considered securities.

exposure, and increasing the ease of purchasing goods with bitcoin is never bad. People might skip buying 5 dollars min fee prepaid credit cards and or ukash and just use bitcoin for online purchases.

Isn't what BitPay does with its BTC more important then what Overstock does with it? Or maybe we can start a whole new group of activists who support merchants who don't instantly covert their BTC to fiat at the POS.

Everyone should have been drunk at least once in their life.

I'm not drunk often btw (last time was a year ago) but I do like a drink now and then.

I'd honestly see LTC doing this instead of DGC.

Think small, act big. That's all I am trying too say. 400K Dogecoins each month, with an outlook at a future price of (wild guess) $1,40 each. Sign me up. Oh no wait, I already did.

My guess turned out right, Dogecoin is actually more hyped than Bitcoin right now: http://www.redditlist.com/

Dogecoin #55

Bitcoin #60

I'm still shaking.

Interesting read:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=1&

Even more interesting though, are the comments of the readers. Am I the only one here that thinks that Krugman is paid to stand for fiat money? His arguments find me completely indifferent.



Heh... probably talking to the wrong people (intentionally that is...).

Who is catching some knifes?