What is this seller doing?

[Stilicho]

Hello guys,

I would like to know your opinion. I am using bitcoin.de as marketplace. I noticed this seller first time few days before the big crash. He was there all day, all night, putting always 40 offers with volume 0.05 btc. In this way he is blocking the first pages of offers. See the picture. And other people to be able to sell their BTC need to go down with price, to get infront of him. And then this seller, just move his 40 offers in front of them and so on all days.
what is he finally doing? Is this normal? I do not see any normal reason to sell 2 BTC in 40 offers by 0.05 btc.

https://imgur.com/a/Ushfi1A

[mk4]

I'm definitely not a trading pro and I never claimed to be, but I think this is a way of manipulating the markets. Either that, or the person is trying to undercut the prices.

Also, this person is most likely using a bot. I imagine it's pretty tedious to add and switch up 40 offers all day.

[Stilicho]

Exactly, these are my thoughts as well. I wrote on bitcoin.de support and they replied me in few hours that they do not see any price manipulation and using a bot is not illegal.

[mk4]

Exactly, these are my thoughts as well. I wrote on bitcoin.de support and they replied me in few hours that they do not see any price manipulation and using a bot is not illegal.

Yeap. I think it's currently legal due to bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general being currently unregulated. Bots are being widely used among multiple exchanges, even with the top ones like Bitfinex and Binance. As with manipulation? I'm not sure. I think price manipulation isn't legal nor illegal; in the cryptocurrency space at least.

[pooya87]

no, he is not manipulating anything. but yes he is using a bot. this is in fact a "strategy", a stupid one but still a strategy.
unfortunately there are bots that have silly scripts like this where the user (who has no idea what trading is and thinks a trading bot is what he clicks a button and the money pours in) sets a bunch of variables and the bot starts trading for him.
the idea is basically that you buy at different prices for example at €X, €Y, €Z,... prices and decide on a profit amount and then start selling those at €(X+profit%), €(Y+same profit%). but when the difference between X and Y is tiny the result is this filled orderbook with junk which will be filled in an instant since the volume isn't that high compared to liquidity.

[OnceTwiceThird]

Seller only waiting when bitcoin is on higher price, they will hold and never sell their asset with this situation where bitcoin and altcoin still on lower and drop price, just wait until everything is back to higher price again.

[Dexion]

I think it's not normal, the estimation sales of a manipulated market looked very strange, and always change very significantly.

even market volatility is more difficult to predict and difficult to control.