What do you think - Is BTC/FIAT easily manipulated ?

[kaiser11]

After all, how much would it cost to manipulate the BTC/FIAT exchange rate ? after all -  there is a very limited number of exchanges, and trading volume is not as high as is the case in the traditional Foreign exchange

[ashour]

It depends if you have a huge amount of bitcoins and fiat to play with, the market cap is around $3B which is easily manipulative if you have a huge capital to invest into the manipulation.

[pedrog]

Willy Bot did it and it didn't required a ton of coins, don't know if it can be done again.

https://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-report-proof-of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-at-mt-gox-and-how-it-has-affected-the-price-of-bitcoin/

[kaiser11]

It depends if you have a huge amount of bitcoins and fiat to play with, the market cap is around $3B which is easily manipulative if you have a huge capital to invest into the manipulation.

is $3B referring to the value of the number of bitcoin out there ?  because many coins are in wallets lost forever (especially those created in the early days) , also-  many of the bitcoin owners do not necessarily trade, but rather prefer to just hold on to the coin.

[Amph]

Willy Bot did it and it didn't required a ton of coins, don't know if it can be done again.

https://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-report-proof-of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-at-mt-gox-and-how-it-has-affected-the-price-of-bitcoin/

well not exactly, if you read that article it say that he bought 270k coin at least, which aren't exactly few coin, so about 50M to manipulate the market heavily

if you want a "soft manipulation" i guess 1M is enough

[Reynaldo]

Yes, it's easily manipulated, the thing is that usually the big ones who own that much money, wouldnt risk it into "bitcoin virtual currency (as they see it)".

It would hurt to make a mistake in a pump and dump and then lose millions on the experiment.

[waterpile]

Yes if you have the tons of dollars or you have a group of rich friends that are willing to risk some cash.
                                                       "Money is power"

[NUFCrichard]

After all, how much would it cost to manipulate the BTC/FIAT exchange rate ? after all -  there is a very limited number of exchanges, and trading volume is not as high as is the case in the traditional Foreign exchange

The gold market was being manipulated at the total value of the gold in the world is 7 trillion USD.
Bitcoin has a market size about 0.04% of gold's, so is easily manipulated.  It is also more fungibile and has fewer exchanges, so can more easily be manipulated.

I personally don't think there is any genius plan to keep the price high/low, just inpatient people following trends.