Walls of Intimidation

[cbeast]

As a novice in the trading world, I look at trading patterns from an amateur perspective, presuming there is a professional perspective. There is something new I've seen in the last couple weeks. I am seeing large, steep sell walls. They slide back and turn to stair steps near the bottom after a steep drop. It appears that a big fish is keeping the price down by making it difficult for anyone to sell at a higher price and drive motivated sellers like miners to drop their sell orders below the wall. They can then slowly buy them up causing a wide spread. When the spread is far enough, they then sell enough to drop the price where they can buy more to add to the wall. I feel this is an intimidation tactic that will work until a bigger fish comes along, The wall can be reconstructed at a higher price until an even bigger fish comes along. Does this seem like a valid tactic? Will it lead to an escalation of bigger and bigger walls?

[Gab1159]

Oh yeah, no doubt there are big players doing that, and that works pretty well it seems.

[tbeau1]

It probably works well until Bitcoin gets a piece of good press and another big cat comes along and says, "ooh, I want in on this. But I don't want to cause large price fluctuations with my huge purchases.... so I'll just buy enough to take down any large walls that pop up." Suddenly, with the walls gone, the price starts drastically going up and if the individual(s) that sold the coins wants them back, he'll have to buy them back at a higher price.

[zoinky]

Much of it is group mentality sparked by conversations in this subforum.

[notme]

Much of it is group mentality sparked by conversations in this subforum.

I concur.

[jwzguy]

Easy fix for sellers who don't want to sell under those walls....bitfloor.   

[camolist]

Easy fix for sellers who don't want to sell under those walls....bitfloor.   

wait...why is this not arbitraged to death?

about 65 btc bid on at 47 or over

even with .6% mtgox fee and i think its .4 at bitfloor this is profitable

[notme]

Easy fix for sellers who don't want to sell under those walls....bitfloor.  

wait...why is this not arbitraged to death?

about 65 btc bid on at 47 or over

even with .6% mtgox fee and i think its .4 at bitfloor this is profitable

I'd do it, but I don't want to be out of bitcoin that long and I don't have the fiat to cover it now.

[camolist]

may do it myself.

i'm checking out bitfloor. last i remember about them was all the drama (not even sure if they've paid back yet?) off to read

need to see how easy getting usd out of it is as well

[notme]

may do it myself.

i'm checking out bitfloor. last i remember about them was all the drama (not even sure if they've paid back yet?) off to read

need to see how easy getting usd out of it is as well

It takes a few days for him to set you up the first time, then 1-3 days for the withdrawal.  He just does standard ACH payments, so it's US only.

[yokosan]

It probably works well until Bitcoin gets a piece of good press and another big cat comes along and says, "ooh, I want in on this. But I don't want to cause large price fluctuations with my huge purchases.... so I'll just buy enough to take down any large walls that pop up." Suddenly, with the walls gone, the price starts drastically going up and if the individual(s) that sold the coins wants them back, he'll have to buy them back at a higher price.

[anu]

Does this seem like a valid tactic?

Only if the manipulator takes the risk associated with this: A big enough buy offer keeps MtGox's trading engine so busy that it may not accept a "cancel trade" before it is too late.

[cbeast]

Once again I am seeing this. I expect a huge jump soon.

[SheHadMANHands]

These things may work very well for a while..  we are getting to the point where people with deep pockets will start eating multi-k walls up without much thought though.  I imagine for wealthy traders/bankers, it'd be kind of cool to play the bitcoin market.  A $1,000,000 market order would be a snooze to them.  They'll be stepping into an arena where $50k looks like a bit buy to most.

Point is we may see some epic size walls and market orders more than we used to.  The game is getting bigger.

[cbeast]

Looks like we are about to see a large price swing down and then up.