- The player sells at major technical and psychological support levels (400, 380, 375, 360)
- The initial sign that he is working is a large market sell, in the neighborhood of BTC500-800. Sometimes they are split up into smaller orders, but they tend to occur within seconds of each other. This snaps up all of the buy orders immediately below the market price.
- Some time later come smaller market sells, on average 10 times less than the original market sells. These increase sell pressure and are intended to fool traders that a downtrend is imminent.
- Smaller traders eventually join in, effectively pushing the price down further.
- No evidence of buying or microbuying once the price evens out lower. He may be doing this on another exchange or OTC.
Let's say someone has a big amount of BTCs. The price is falling so he feels uneasy with holding it. When will he sell? Most probably at psychological support levels - because he'd lose hope then.
Number one on your list checked.
Then - if he can work with cool mind - he'd leave some of his holdings for the inevitable pull back - and sell it then.
Number two checked.
Other people will see the move and also lose hope.
Number three checked.
He'll not buy back - because he lost hope.
Number four checked.
Looks like the actions you observe would be exactly the same if it was not a manipulation - but rather a big holder losing hope.