Price Manipulation

[Bazil]

Looking at the meteoric rise of the bit coin price in literally minutes I decided to watch the orders as they were coming through.  To me it seems someone may be driving the price up on purpose.  A while back I thought, if I had a ton of money how I could make a ton of money if I drove the price up with two large orders, one a buy and the other a sell and them rolling them up the price dial.  Then moving all my buy orders over to the sell order.  I calculated a person could make a lot of money doing this and from what I saw this may be what's happening.

[1714020125]

1714020125

[1714020125]

1714020125

[1714020125]

1714020125

[1714020125]

1714020125

[1714020125]

1714020125

[1714020125]

1714020125

[DamienBlack]

You can't choose who you buy from. To roll the price up you'd have to buy up every ask from every other person along the way, (as well as everyone who decided to sell while prices are up) the risk would be astronomical and there wouldn't be much chance to sell them all without dropping the price even further. Anyone buying this much, actually pushing prices up, is in it for the long haul.

[Clipse]

Looking at the meteoric rise of the bit coin price in literally minutes I decided to watch the orders as they were coming through.  To me it seems someone may be driving the price up on purpose.  A while back I thought, if I had a ton of money how I could make a ton of money if I drove the price up with two large orders, one a buy and the other a sell and them rolling them up the price dial.  Then moving all my buy orders over to the sell order.  I calculated a person could make a lot of money doing this and from what I saw this may be what's happening.

If you believe what you just said about how to make alot of money then you would never have posted anything about that.

[Maged]

Today's rise was organic. It occurred right after all the Dwolla money came into MtGox.

[mellowhead]

Today's rise was organic. It occurred right after all the Dwolla money came into MtGox.

Would I be correct to assume you mean Dwolla weekend money? What's the turnaround time with Dwolla anyways? (I had assumed it was a couple of days)

[zhalox]

My money just arrived and I bought $500 of BTC at $22ish.

[Bazil]

If you believe what you just said about how to make alot of money then you would never have posted anything about that.

Nope, I don't have the money to do anything like that so why not mention it?  

You can't choose who you buy from. To roll the price up you'd have to buy up every ask from every other person along the way, (as well as everyone who decided to sell while prices are up) the risk would be astronomical and there wouldn't be much chance to sell them all without dropping the price even further. Anyone buying this much, actually pushing prices up, is in it for the long haul.

Yeah the person would have to fill all the buy orders up to a certain level.  That's the point, and it requires a lot of money to do it.  But if you push the price up far beyond where most of the volume was (at 19.9 and 20)  then turn around and sell that volume at the higher value you pushed it to (24) you make a big chunk of change.

[DamienBlack]

If you believe what you just said about how to make alot of money then you would never have posted anything about that.

Nope, I don't have the money to do anything like that so why not mention it?  

You can't choose who you buy from. To roll the price up you'd have to buy up every ask from every other person along the way, (as well as everyone who decided to sell while prices are up) the risk would be astronomical and there wouldn't be much chance to sell them all without dropping the price even further. Anyone buying this much, actually pushing prices up, is in it for the long haul.

Yeah the person would have to fill all the buy orders up to a certain level.  That's the point, and it requires a lot of money to do it.  But if you push the price up far beyond where most of the volume was (at 19.9 and 20)  then turn around and sell that volume at the higher value you pushed it to (24) you make a big chunk of change.

But who is buying? You just filled all the orders in that range. You would have to hope that enough people bid in behind you to rebuy all the BTCs you just picked up. None of the people that just sold are going to buy at a higher value, so you can't count on them. You have to count on a lot of other people stepping in, and it just isn't going to happen.

For example, you fill every order from $18 to $25, costing you half a million US$. Then you try to sell... To who? you filled every order from $18 to $25, the only person selling is back at $17! So maybe some person decides, now that the price went up, I'll buy at $20. This is weird, because just a moment ago he could have bought at $18 but didn't, so why is he buying at $20 now? You'll find a few people who follow the prices up, but not half a million worth. Ultimately, trying to trade on such a short time frame is a zero-sum game. You'll only make money if people willingly lose money by buying higher than they sold for. It simply wouldn't work unless real support for the higher price exists. If support for the higher price exists then the price would have moved in that direction anyway. With such rapid movement, some people on the wrong side will decide to take a small loss, but it won't be as much as you put in. Most people will just sell to you at the inflated higher prices, wait for the prices to move back down and buy. They make a quick buck off of your silly decision, and you pay for it.

[Bazil]

People buy because they don't want to miss the boat.  From experience, it's really hard not to buy when you see the price shoot up and you have USD and not bitcoins.

[URSAY]

The Bitcoin is still currently undervalued.

[DamienBlack]

People buy because they don't want to miss the boat.  From experience, it's really hard not to buy when you see the price shoot up and you have USD and not bitcoins.

And you'll get some people to buy, but you would have to sell 20,000+ bitcoins. Each at a higher price then you bought it at. You also have to worry about all the people that decide to sell because the price is up. They will underbid you and people trying to catch some bitcoins on the way up will buy from them. If this tactic was plausible, it could be used on any stock. It won't work unless there is real support for the higher price. If there existed real support, and the price wasn't there yet, you just anticipated the market, not manipulated it.

[Bazil]

It won't work unless there is real support for the higher price.

I agree with that

[Dobrodav]

omg its already 23$. Thanks to that unknown guy that put 10000 btc in dark pool, to allow us stay in 18-19  for so long.

[buckeye]

now it's almost $25

yeah.. thanks to whoever is pushing the price up

[gongcheng]

It has been discussed in this thread.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=12857.0