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January 19, 2014, 09:43:37 AM |
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The BitcoinWisdom website is showing evidence of a million dollar purchase that occurred over a five minute period between 17:10 and 17:15 GMT on the BTC-e exchange on Saturday January 18th. Trading volume surged to over 1000 coins during the five minute period. The website shows that normal five-minute volume during the first 19 hours of that day was about 20 coins, which makes this five minute period standout for explanation. The largest volume occurred in the first and fourth minutes, but it was significantly higher during each of the five minutes than during the five minutes in the hour preceding and following. The spread between the high and low price during each minute surged to about 20 coins against a background of 5 or less. The price surged from about $810 at the start to $839 during the fourth minute. The low price during each of the five minutes never exceeded $820. The high price fell to around $820 in the sixth minute and then fell to around $815 for the next hour.
Normally a $30 move in price on either of the Bitstamp, BTC-e, Mt.Gox, BTCChina, or OKCoin exchanges would be mirrored on all five. However, there was no evidence that what occurred on BTC-e affected price discovery on any of the other four. This anomaly is clearly explainable by the fact that the spread on BTC-e widened during the period from about 5 to about 20 as noted above.
The simplest explanation for the episode is that someone or some group purchased around 1000 Bitcoins worth around a million dollars on that exchange during that period. The evidence indicates that the episode had practically no lasting effect in the next hour on that exchange and no discern able affect whatsoever on the other four. If this was an attempt to manipulate the market, it failed miserably.
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