How do you "manipulate" the price of bitcoin?

[n691309]

It seems commonly accepted among bitcoiners that wealthy individuals or cartels can "manipulate" the price of bitcoin. However, it is never explained how they supposedly do this. Every brainstorm I've come up with simply results in the supposed manipulators losing more money than they make if they tried to artificially drive the price of bitcoin away from the equilibrium free market price.

So I'd like to ask those who believe in price manipulation for an explanation (as well as evidence and examples) of how this manipulation supposedly works, in such a way that the wealthy manipulators don't fritter away their wealth in the attempt.

People with <100BTC or <1000BTC don't have too much power to manipulate the price. Neither those like me that have very low amount of bitcoin. What we can do is only to dump the price on particular exchanges (not those that are popular) and manipulate a specific altcoin price (only dumping)

[yesiam6]

You would probably need a lot of money/bitcoins
to do that. And / or the opportunity to spread FUD or positive rumours
with wide media reach.

[Kprawn]

You need a couple of whales to team together like a pod of whales and then start selling or buying on several exchanges. You also time this with good and bad news, so that it does not stand out too

much. We are talking about a lot of coins and a lot of fiat, so do not even try to do this with your 10 to 100 coins.   Can you guys still remember the user who "infiltrated" the whale club and shared

the secrets on the forum. That was a entertaining thread.. cannot find it now.   ... The secret handshake was a high 5 and a slap on the ass. 

[CryptoBjorn]

You would probably need a lot of money/bitcoins
to do that. And / or the opportunity to spread FUD or positive rumours
with wide media reach.

It's start with money and lots of it. Then you need to find a good moment when there are less sell orders or the market is weak and silent. From there you can start pumping with little or big steps. Obviously there is more to that then this, but this is a great way to start.

And if you have a lot of money, you can afford to make some mistakes

[odolvlobo]

Same can be done in the opposite direction, pumping up the price before letting it drop. Also known as the pump and dump.

That's not a "pump and dump". This is what a pump and dump is:

Pump and dump is a scheme that attempts to boost the price of a stock through recommendations based on false, misleading or greatly exaggerated statements. ...

[franky1]

Same can be done in the opposite direction, pumping up the price before letting it drop. Also known as the pump and dump.

That's not a "pump and dump". This is what a pump and dump is:

Pump and dump is a scheme that attempts to boost the price of a stock through recommendations based on false, misleading or greatly exaggerated statements. ...

just buying orders like some newbies think 'requires large whales to achieve price movements'.. is not a pump and dump.. thats just buying and selling.. which is nothing special.. and simply termed speculative purchases

pump and dump is the use of psychologically causing others to change their trading patterns to raise the price (pump) and lower the price(dump) by the reaction of the information provided to them

these days if does not even need to be done by spreading FUD, it does not even have to be done by buying alot of coins personally or selling alot of coins personally.
these days it can be done by bots or humans, playfully setting walls of resistance to prompt other people to change trading patterns/decisions/prices.
market analysis of order volumes gives traders more info then FUD stories can..

couple years back when btc-e and the troll chatbox was a main trading experience.. more "manipulation" was done via walls then by spreading fud in chat.
even at MTGox in the early days, just a wall of 1000btc ($2000) was enough to sway prices in a new direction

[Nowl1935]

It seems commonly accepted among bitcoiners that wealthy individuals or cartels can "manipulate" the price of bitcoin. However, it is never explained how they supposedly do this. Every brainstorm I've come up with simply results in the supposed manipulators losing more money than they make if they tried to artificially drive the price of bitcoin away from the equilibrium free market price.

So I'd like to ask those who believe in price manipulation for an explanation (as well as evidence and examples) of how this manipulation supposedly works, in such a way that the wealthy manipulators don't fritter away their wealth in the attempt.

Simple as this, I can manipulate the value of bitcoin by buying or making bitcoin, earning bitcoin as many as i can, because of that, the supply will bitcoin will decrease and the value will increase. Just like halving.

[mkc]

Generally speaking, if market cap is M, one needs 30 percent of  M to manipulate that market. For Bitcoin, this translate to about 3 or 4 billion now a days.
I don't think anyone is dare/trying to do that any more. But in alt coin world, this happenes a lot.

[serjent05]

I think there are lots of approach how to manipulate bitcoin price but i think the most effective is thru promotion / demotion scheme.  It's very effective.  We can use media to FUD and create panic.  Or use it to promote and boost sales.  Information, how it was passed or how it was hidden plays a great role in one developments / program success.  If i have the power to manipulate the flow of information about BTC, I can control the price.  so to manipulate the price of bitcoin i'll just manipulate the information about bitcoin.

[el kaka22]

Generally speaking, if market cap is M, one needs 30 percent of  M to manipulate that market. For Bitcoin, this translate to about 3 or 4 billion now a days.
I don't think anyone is dare/trying to do that any more. But in alt coin world, this happenes a lot.

That's for sure, if someone hold a large amount of the capital they would probably thinking of controlling the equilibrium of the market. However I think in BTC now it is highly impossible due to 10+ billion market cap.

[Carlsen]

Generally speaking, if market cap is M, one needs 30 percent of  M to manipulate that market. For Bitcoin, this translate to about 3 or 4 billion now a days.
I don't think anyone is dare/trying to do that any more. But in alt coin world, this happenes a lot.

That's for sure, if someone hold a large amount of the capital they would probably thinking of controlling the equilibrium of the market. However I think in BTC now it is highly impossible due to 10+ billion market cap.

Maybe some freaked out billionaire has the capital and the time to mess with bitcoin course.
But in the end he would probably lose some money if he tries to elevate the price by buying coins.
The average user has no chance of doing that.

[X-ray]

Manipulation needs lot of money in both bitcoin and in fiat and creating a big sell wall to force price go down and buy whatever you can when price is like 5-10% than the point you have created sell wall. And removing that big sell wall and giving market some space to again get pumped and selling again what you bought at higher price.

And only big companies or community can manipulate bitcoin volume. Manipulate is one important reason "why bitcoin price is rising" Some big companies mix this way with another to make a big effect for bitcoin globally.

[BitcoinPC]

You would probably need a lot of money/bitcoins
to do that. And / or the opportunity to spread FUD or positive rumours
with wide media reach.

To manipulate the prices of bitcoins is not is a scope of a common man. Even if you have 100 or 1000 Bitcoin it is difficult . In order to do so you need a big community of bitcoin users like currently Chinese are purchasing like madly and it has effect on the price of bitcoins. So in order to manipulate the bitcoin price we need a whole lots of bitcoin users with lots of bitcoins with them and all of them has same intentions like buying or selling at the same time.

[Snorek]

It is not that hard to start a 'manipulation' I suspect that you don't need that much asset for that. In the internet era it is easier to start a 'pump'.
Bitcoin users are crowd which could be easily manipulated - it is like they want to be deceived themselves.

You can see it yourself - bitcoiners will react allergically to all kinds of even remotely bad news and overly optimistic when there is chance of profit ahead.

It is easy to manipulate bitcoin - easier that stocks, because we have no real company behind it and all information could be stretched to promote desired behavior of the market.

[uname]

Generally speaking, if market cap is M, one needs 30 percent of  M to manipulate that market. For Bitcoin, this translate to about 3 or 4 billion now a days.
I don't think anyone is dare/trying to do that any more. But in alt coin world, this happenes a lot.

yeah i think it will be difficult for you to manipulate the price of bitcoin now. Of course you need a very large bitcoin. and it is a hindrance to you. and do not necessarily your manipulation occur or be successful

[SilverPunk]

You would probably need a lot of money/bitcoins
to do that. And / or the opportunity to spread FUD or positive rumours
with wide media reach.

To manipulate the prices of bitcoins is not is a scope of a common man. Even if you have 100 or 1000 Bitcoin it is difficult . In order to do so you need a big community of bitcoin users like currently Chinese are purchasing like madly and it has effect on the price of bitcoins. So in order to manipulate the bitcoin price we need a whole lots of bitcoin users with lots of bitcoins with them and all of them has same intentions like buying or selling at the same time.

Yeah ,it is not easy as we think ,i agree that it needs a lot of bitcoins or a group of bitcoiners just to manipulate the price .
I think there's one more because most of bitcoiners are joining on the crowd if it goes up more possibly others are buying until halving is not end .then if it goes down they follow to sell some coins and then buy again .that was the flow right now so if big coin holders also do that .it will as easy to manipulate those fluctuations.