I'm a Central Bank trying to keep Bitcoin from being adopted

[mindtomatter]

Make sure you keep your plan a secret because there is more than one central bank, and they probably have more money than you to spend. Do you think they will waste their money helping you to destroy Bitcoin, or do you think they will buy your cheap bitcoins and put you out of business?

Central banks have always worked together against the slave class.  Watch the Forex markets if you don't believe so.

It would be naive to think they won't try to kill Bitcoin.

So far though 3 good opportunities to cause a crash have resulted in a rapid rebound.  Demonstrating some pretty good resiliency.

The momentum is only increasing.   The cost of doing something like this is going up exponentially.   

I suspect there are enough in the community to see it for what it is and buy, buy, buy.

It's the new naive user that will be hurt.

I don't think they can kill bitcoin, just slow its adoption and create a group of people who will never touch a cryptocurrency again because it cost them so much.

The cost of doing something like this going up is a GOOD THING for the manipulator, it means there is further to fall and since they have access to (for the purposes of such a small market) unlimited funds, they don't care about incurring losses - only the losses they cause others to incur.

The community is not small, but if the largest buyer suddenly turned seller and dumped 10% of the bitcoins in circulation on the market, I think you'll agree that would cause a major panic and take quite some time for the market to effectively clear. During that time, what happens to the people who bought in at 100/ea?  1500/ea?  10,000/ea?   How much of their investment will they be able to recoup as they struggle to save what they can?

[collapse]

Any central bank (ECB, FED, BoE) and gov (USA, EU) can kill bitcoin and similar currencies in two days or less.
They have too many options. For example, close exchangers, forbid the protocol,..., too many.
First at all, bitcoin is not a real currency, very little people works for BTC, very little people sell products and services in BTC. BTC has not stable value, ...,not possible for real life.
Only exchange, only mining, ..., for $, €,....

In the other hand,..., software developers/foundation are the new "board of governors", or central bank of the currency. A change in client/server of bitcoin network, it is really, a change in bitcoin.

[mindtomatter]

Any central bank (ECB, FED, BoE) and gov (USA, EU) can kill bitcoin and similar currencies in two days or less.
They have too many options. For example, close exchangers, forbid the protocol,..., too many.
First at all, bitcoin is not a real currency, very little people works for BTC, very little people sell products and services in BTC. BTC has not stable value, ...,not possible for real life.
Only exchange, only mining, ..., for $, €,....

In the other hand,..., software developers/foundation are the new "board of governors", or central bank of the currency. A change in client/server of bitcoin network, it is really, a change in bitcoin.

You gave two examples; Close exchanges and forbid the protocol

Close exchanges: this would cause a major disruption, a price crash... BUT in the long term it's actually good for Bitcoin.   Look at Napster vs. p2p music sharing now, every time a service was smashed it was replaced (not by the same people) with something even more distributed, even harder to stop, and even harder to generate profit from so the people doing it care less about money and more about the cause.

If I were a central bank that is NOT what I would ever want to do, you want to make sure that bitcoin stays as concentrated in as few a places as possible because you can turn that into a chokepoint - Apply pressure to Gox and you can affect 92% of the volume being traded, which means you control the market.   If you close all the taxpaying, law abiding exchanges down you'll just cause the creation of shadow markets that make it very difficult to track the users since they don't keep customer records centrally.

Forbid the Protocol:
Same thing, price crash, but instead you wind up with crypto forks of the protocol that focus heavily on anonymous use and maximally decentralized control.

The developer foundation is NOT a central bank board, because a central bank board acts with unilateral authority and makes changes, in secret, to accomplish whatever purposes they want.

The developers on the other hand have to come up with a plan and then TELL EVERYBODY ABOUT IT, and not just tell them about it but convince them that the idea is correct, will work, and won't cause a problem that's potentially worse than what they're fixing. 

AND even if they manage to convince everybody to do the wrong thing a few times, people will eventually just stop listening to them since it'll be obvious they're either stupid or NOT working towards the best interests of most people using bitcoin.

Got anything else?

[collapse]

in the long term it's actually good for Bitcoin

Central bank can buy and destroy 10.000.000 BTC or 21.000.000 BTC with fake €, $.
I remember that in USA gold was stolen from people,..., without any problem.
Use of bitcoin can be prosecuted,..., too many.

TELL EVERYBODY ABOUT IT, and not just tell them about it but convince them that the idea is correct

This, it is not a real political system. Democracy, oligarchy, what kind of political system is?
Any bitcoin user can say what to do with bitcoin?. Developers can cause forks in blockchain and destroy bitcoin. Users that do not accept new bitcoin rules could lost money in blockchain fork.
 
Client/server developers/foundations can cause forks, really they are the new central bank.

Gold, silver, and pockets ..., has no central bank.

[mindtomatter]

in the long term it's actually good for Bitcoin

Central bank can buy and destroy 10.000.000 BTC or 21.000.000 BTC with fake €, $.
I remember that in USA gold was stolen from people,..., without any problem.
Use of bitcoin can be prosecuted,..., too many.

TELL EVERYBODY ABOUT IT, and not just tell them about it but convince them that the idea is correct

This, it is not a real political system. Democracy, oligarchy, what kind of political system is?
Any bitcoin user can say what to do with bitcoin?. Developers can cause forks in blockchain and destroy bitcoin. Users that do not accept new bitcoin rules could lost money in blockchain fork.
 
Client/server developers/foundations can cause forks, really they are the new central bank.

Gold, silver, and pockets ..., has no central bank.

Except the price of gold and silver have been successfully suppressed during the last five years of crisis.  And for basically the same reasons.  They can't stop people from recognizing the value, but they can play tricks with supply and demand (because you can create paper promises for real gold or silver, which removes the advantage of no entity being able to create something of value out of nothing)

So they control the market as best they can, and when it looks like things are going to run away from them (to a higher price) they HELP IT GET THERE by buying into the market at the higher prices, and then selling (at a loss) to cause a panic out of the bubble.  This is the technique, has been for years.

Bitcoin does not have the ability to do that because there are no paper bitcoins (you know what I mean, you can't just create a promise for bitcoins you don't own that will be accepted for the same price as a bitcoin).  BUT it has the advantage of being unregulated and very small, not easier or harder to manipulate - but very different.

If what you say happened to Bitcoin and an entity bought everything just to destroy it, the people who sold their bitcoins to the buying entity for dollars still would have all the concerns about dollars that made bitcoin attractive in the first place, so a fork would be developed that would have a greater emphasis on being able to tell when a coin was in a "destroyed" state, and a mechanism to recycle those into the system.

And pockets absolutely have a central bank if theres paper money in them.  Just because you have a dollar in your pocket doesn't mean it'll buy a dollars worth of value tomorrow.

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Originally posted at Reddit

Playing Devil's Advocate here....

Let's play a game:  I'll be the Central Bank with say, 10 billion USD to devote to the "problem" of bitcoin.  You try to think of why my plan won't succeed.    

• I win when I can cause situations that scare users away from using Bitcoins. 
• I lose when non-technical users successfully and satisfactorily use any currency that's not controlled by a central bank.

So I'm assuming everyone understands why central banks will never like Bitcoin.

It's a construct completely outside their control, and since they get their power from issuing and being the central clearing house for paper currencies the mere existence of an alternative that doesn't have those problems is very dangerous, because it's obviously a better deal for its users in the medium-long term.

You can't manipulate a currency unless you have a lot of it at your disposal. With dollars, that's easy - Just create some new currency.
But with Bitcoin, you can't do that - So what do you do as a central bank with the ability to create as much paper money as you want.....
You buy a bunch of bitcoins, and the price doesn't matter. Actually, it's BETTER for you if your buying causes the price to go up, the more the better.

The total market cap for Bitcoin just hit 1 billion, so if the Fed wanted to buy 10% at current market rates best case scenario it would be 100 million, which is pocket change for the entities we're talking about. The demand spike creates a price spike which pulls media attention which brings new buyers which feeds higher prices which feeds more media attention, the cycle becomes self perpetuating after a while. That's where we are now.

Because Bitcoin's fundamentals (stable supply, distributed decision making, borderless operation) don't really leave room to argue they're worse than Dollars, the only argument that can reasonably made against them is that they're unstable and therefore unsafe for the average person to use.

So the way you do that is help the price go way up by buying in quantity over a reasonable period of time without regard to the price, then once you've cornered a reasonable proportion of the market (say 5-10%) you dump them all at once, smash the price, and incur massive losses for the new users who bought in during the climb through higher prices.
Then (after the market exhausts itself at the bottom) you DO NOT buy any of your coins back, since the dollar amount is trivial it's better to leave the impression that demand in the market has completely left town.

This also means you can use the same trick of accumulating -> causes bubble -> encourages newbies to get in -> sell large stake -> pop bubble -> cause newbie panic -> advise currency is unsafe -> wait for fundamentals to become important again -> repeat

What do you think, why wouldn't this be easy for any major central bank to do?

We had a bubble already.  Tell me, how is that working out?  (look at nr of transactions, nr of wallets being used etc.)

It took 6 months+ to recover, scared a lot of players out of the market who have still not returned, and let everybody talk about how "unstable" bitcoin is because it's just a speculative bubble.   

The fact we're now in an even bigger bubble is cause for concern in the short term because as normal people buy into the currency, not wanting to miss out on the next big thing, a crash in price back to even 500%+ what it was in January will mean HUGE losses for anyone buying in at prices over 60/ea.   

Those investors won't hang around once the price is at 30 hoping for a rebound, they'll take the loss and be out of bitcoin thankful they didn't lose more and swearing to not be stupid enough to try a "new currency" again

Which again, is my goal (as the central bank) so I won that round, and it looks like I'll win this round too.  Crash the price, Gut the newbies, destroy the legitimacy of the investment for at least a few months.

So you win a battle, but you are losing the war...   
I still think the bubbles are normal price discovery though.

[mindtomatter]

Why can't I just keep doing this forever, preventing most of the people in the WORLD from viewing bitcoin as anything other than a highly technical instrument of speculation that is unsafe for the average person?

So you win a battle, but you are losing the war...   
I still think the bubbles are normal price discovery though.

[lukestokes]

This is a fascinating discussion. Big thanks to everyone contributing. I do wonder, however, if someone involved with central banking might not find it a nice play book. At least we're also discussing potential solutions.

As an American, I think government restrictions will be the hardest thing to get around. You can mention Tor and darknet and such things, but the average person doesn't have a clue about them, and probably never will. If Bitcoin is pushed to the dark, it won't ever be adopted widely enough to be a real solution. That, of course, assumes those who operate "in the dark" are a small minority. If they end up becoming the majority, we might have another revolution. That, I think, is unlikely (at this point).

[billotronic]

I think that the OP is spot on with a lot of these assumptions. Bitcoin, even in the current scheme of things, is a HUGE threat to the status quo for reasons painfully clear. In the 'civilized' world, banksters run EVERYTHING. Granted, I can only attest to the situation in the US, but ffs, you have to be pretty naive to think otherwise. Don't agree? Quantitative Easing. I can barely pay my bills these days cause one USD doesn't go very far these days...

Now, with that being said, if Slave St really wanted to go after BTC, my money would be on a 51% attack. MUCH easier to prep for and the desolation to the BTC economy would be as simple as flipping a switch. Same could be said in regards to the NSA... with their available computer power and toys they have lying around, they could probably do it right now if so inclined or motivated... but thats a whole other argument.

[mindtomatter]

This is a fascinating discussion. Big thanks to everyone contributing. I do wonder, however, if someone involved with central banking might not find it a nice play book. At least we're also discussing potential solutions.

As an American, I think government restrictions will be the hardest thing to get around. You can mention Tor and darknet and such things, but the average person doesn't have a clue about them, and probably never will. If Bitcoin is pushed to the dark, it won't ever be adopted widely enough to be a real solution. That, of course, assumes those who operate "in the dark" are a small minority. If they end up becoming the majority, we might have another revolution. That, I think, is unlikely (at this point).

I'm bright, but nobody ever called me a genius - You've got to imagine if I can think this through on a whim it's not that difficult for people whose business is based on staying in control.

You've correctly identified the ONLY point where the US government, or any government really, has control of Bitcoin transactions - When people exchange their bitcoins for dollars.   Because it isn't tied to the USD, they can make the case that it's speculative profit and thus requires capital gains to be paid on it.  There are actually several ways they could go about this, but that's the most straightforward in my opinion.  As the central bank I'd want regulations to be onerous, but not so difficult to navigate that it's easier to just break the law and avoid them.  Ultimately you want as much going through the legal system as possible, because you can tax that which adds to the cost of using it for the average law abiding citizen and makes dollars look better.

[mindtomatter]

I think that the OP is spot on with a lot of these assumptions. Bitcoin, even in the current scheme of things, is a HUGE threat to the status quo for reasons painfully clear. In the 'civilized' world, banksters run EVERYTHING. Granted, I can only attest to the situation in the US, but ffs, you have to be pretty naive to think otherwise. Don't agree? Quantitative Easing. I can barely pay my bills these days cause one USD doesn't go very far these days...

Now, with that being said, if Slave St really wanted to go after BTC, my money would be on a 51% attack. MUCH easier to prep for and the desolation to the BTC economy would be as simple as flipping a switch. Same could be said in regards to the NSA... with their available computer power and toys they have lying around, they could probably do it right now if so inclined or motivated... but thats a whole other argument.

Except that governments aren't known for being technically brilliant.  In fact, they're highly inefficient.     If what you're saying was true, why hasn't a government company taken the lead in microchip technology yet?   

Ultimately, they  use what's on the market

No, the only reason I'd think this is a serious possibility is if an ASIC firm goes private and instead of selling into the market engages in massive "proprietary use"

[mindtomatter]

So you win a battle, but you are losing the war...   
I still think the bubbles are normal price discovery though.

Why can't I just keep doing this forever, preventing most of the people in the WORLD from viewing bitcoin as anything other than a highly technical instrument of speculation that is unsafe for the average person?

Because on every cycle you buy expensive bitcoins that you sell later with a loss. So basically you give free money to everybody.

Technically you're right - The money has to go somewhere, but you're wrong in saying it's "Free money to everybody".

The new dollars will only go to experienced traders who know the game and follow the markets like a hawk, fingers hovering on the sell button at the right time. 

The people I care about (the newbies just getting into bitcoin because it seems like such an opportunity) will be the ones who panic and sell when the market is 50% below what they paid, and it looks like it's going all the way back down. 

So while Bitcoin as a market keeps getting bigger, all the value is being collected at the early adopter/day trader user level.  People who want to use it as a currency?  No thanks, too volitile!   People who want to invest in it because it seems like a good opportunity?  Well, it was an opportunity until I lost 50% of my investment!

We all agree you can't "Kill" bitcoin, but doing this I think you could keep it VERY niche and preserve the US dollar as the world reserve currency at least a few more years.

[mindtomatter]

Seems like people are out of ways to stop me the central bank) from preventing bitcoin reaching mass adoption through induced, planned serial bubbles and crashes.

I win.  Muahaha

[deathcode]

Seems like people are out of ways to stop me the central bank) from preventing bitcoin reaching mass adoption through induced, planned serial bubbles and crashes.

I win.  Muahaha

you didn't win. What you're proposing is unfeasible, it won't happen.

[mindtomatter]

Seems like people are out of ways to stop me the central bank) from preventing bitcoin reaching mass adoption through induced, planned serial bubbles and crashes.

I win.  Muahaha

you didn't win. What you're proposing is unfeasible, it won't happen.

What part isn't feasible, that a central bank whose job it is to make sure they remain in control of the currency used by its subjects wouldn't manipulate a market?   That 10 billion dollars is too much to throw at a problem like Bitcoin?

Try using actual reasoning instead of just declaring your will as fact.

[mindtomatter]

Seems like people are out of ways to stop me the central bank) from preventing bitcoin reaching mass adoption through induced, planned serial bubbles and crashes.

GO ! DO IT !

We will buy all your coins

I am.

I'm doing it right now.

If I were a central bank, I'd be buying into the market, keeping the price going up by providing a solid level of demand irregardless of the price and accumulating the ammunition to cause a crash to accomplish my ultimate goal:   Forcing a newbie rush-to-the-exits and creating another swath of people who were interested enough to jump through the hoops and buy bitcoins with fiat currency, and who after suffering enormous losses during the crash will never think of bitcoin as anything but a scam that cost them money.

[deathcode]

Seems like people are out of ways to stop me the central bank) from preventing bitcoin reaching mass adoption through induced, planned serial bubbles and crashes.

I win.  Muahaha

you didn't win. What you're proposing is unfeasible, it won't happen.

What part isn't feasible, that a central bank whose job it is to make sure they remain in control of the currency used by its subjects wouldn't manipulate a market?   That 10 billion dollars is too much to throw at a problem like Bitcoin?

Try using actual reasoning instead of just declaring your will as fact.

Every part is unfeasible.  First of all Central bank from where? Second, not all the bitcoins are for sale and if they buy a huge amount of bitcoin the price will skyrocket exponentially, and I'm talking near the hundreds of thousand per btc. simple offer and demand.
I can assure you that by the time they buy say 1,000,000 BTC the price would be so high that everyone here would be a millionaire with 8 digits!
your assumption is ok, I'm a bank and I have 10 billion to spare to crash this system... but you don't realize that:

A) The other btc holders also know how to play this game
B) Not all bitcoins are for sale.

And sure, invest 10 billion in BTC and after you invested 1 billion the price of BTC skyrocketed to $1000, and then invest 2b and it'll go to 10,000 and so on... by the time they invest all the money, others already profited from the spikes...
Who will win?
All of US..
who'll be scared? a few noobs...

without the bank example... just look at current prices... up 800%-900% since a year ago... let's pretend this mysterious central bank has been driving the price up...
I already made a shit ton of money... I can easily afford to sell at 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, even 10 before I start losing money!
Anyways, you need to read more about economics. Your idea is unfeasible like I stated before.
I hope that helps as an explanation.

[JimiQ84]

Also, lot's of people here will be buying like nuts when the price will crash under, let's say 10 USD. I know I would

[mindtomatter]

Every part is unfeasible.  First of all Central bank from where?
For simplicity, lets assume it's the Fed, which issues the world reserve currency.

Second, not all the bitcoins are for sale and if they bit a huge amount of bitcoin the price will skyrocket exponentially, and I'm talking near the hundreds of thousand per btc. offer and demand.
But the entirety of the bitcoin market is 1 BILLION USD  - Every month I print and  purchase 65 BILLION USD worth of Mortgage Backed Securities at face value - These are financial instruments that cannot be sold on the open market because they're really worth a fraction of the value the FED pays for them at, so clearly the amount isn't the issue.

Let's assume you're right - In order to buy 10% of the bitcoins on the market the price goes up to $100,000 or even $100,000,000 per coin -  That actually accomplishes my purpose BETTER because it means newbies will feel like they MUST buy into bitcoin because it's clearly going up in value and will never come down.  "I wish I had bought it at $1000 per coin, so I better buy when it's $10,000 per coin so I don't miss out when it becomes $100,000 per coin.      

The higher the price goes, the more attractive it is to those not holding any and the more likely they'll buy at the inflated price.   Then when I'm done accumulating, all the suckers are in the market, and I want to make sure they're never in it again I sell all at once and DO NOT rebuy.  With the largest buyer turning into the largest seller, demand collapses and as the price plummets all the newbies decide to take the loss rather than risk losing EVERYTHING, so they all turn into sellers to.

I can assure you that by the time they buy say 1,000,000 BTC the price would se so high that everyone here would be a millionaire with 8 digits!
your assumption is ok, I'm a bank and I have 10 billion to spare to crash this system... but you don't realize that:

See, as the central bank I don't care about you or the other people who have been invested in bitcoin all along and understand it's value proposition - I actually don't mind if you get rich off this because it exacerbates the wealth disparity in the currency, which makes people not like early adopters.    The only thing I really care about is making sure I HURT newbie bitcoin users so badly that they never even want to hear the word Bitcoin again, and every time someone says it they cringe, responding "it's a scam - Don't lose money like I did"


A) The other btc holders also know how to play this game
B) Not all bitcoins are for sale.
A) I don't care about you or other bitcoin holders, just like I don't care about people in the gold market who understand and profit from the predictable manipulation.
B) Enough are for sale so long as I don't care about the price because it's all small potatoes compared to the value backing my operation (multiple trillions)

And sure, invest 10 billion in BTC and after you invested 1 billion the price of BTC skyrocketed to $1000, and then invest 2b and it'll go to 10,000 and so on... by the time they invest all the money, others already profited from the spikes...
Who will win?
All of US..
who'll be scared? a few noobs...
If I can prevent the currency from being adopted by the average person, than I win.  My goal isn't to prevent you from getting rich, it's to make sure Bitcoins don't replace Dollars as the currency everyone expects to do business in.   This is a success because Bitcoin is substantially better at being money than really anything else out there, so If I can prevent Bitcoin from becoming the world reserve currency, it means I get to keep running the world money supply.

without the bank example... just look at current prices... up 800%-900% since a year ago... let's pretend this mysterious central bank has been driving the price up...
I already made a shit ton of money... I can easily afford to sell at 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, even 10 before I start losing money!
Anyways, you need to read more about economics. Your idea is unfeasible like I stated before.
I hope that helps as an explanation.
Again, I don't care about you - You'd act in your best interest no matter what I do, I care about your mom and how upset she'll be after buying into bitcoins as an investment when they're worth $1000 each, who sells when they crash to $40 each.  

She'll never go near bitcoin again, I win.

[deathcode]

My comments in RED

Every part is unfeasible.  First of all Central bank from where?
For simplicity, lets assume it's the Fed, which issues the world reserve currency.
The FED??? The Federal Reserver? ok, allow me to laugh very loudly... Do you really think the Fed will spend time and resources in knocking down a 1 billion dollar market? Dude Wall Street moves 3 trillion dollars a day!!! get real, bitcoin is a drop in the ocean! UNFEASIBLE! right there, and we should stop this silly argument and call it a day, however, for the sake of argument, I'll keep reading below.

Second, not all the bitcoins are for sale and if they bit a huge amount of bitcoin the price will skyrocket exponentially, and I'm talking near the hundreds of thousand per btc. offer and demand.
But the entirety of the bitcoin market is 1 BILLION USD  - Every month I print and  purchase 65 BILLION USD worth of Mortgage Backed Securities at face value - These are financial instruments that cannot be sold on the open market because they're really worth a fraction of the value the FED pays for them at, so clearly the amount isn't the issue.
I'm not sure what are you saying here... you can buy mortgage securities fine, you can buy horse shit for all we care, but you won't be able to buy bitcoin... especially when they sky rocket... who will sell you? me? sure, I'll sell the bank half of my bitcoins for 30,000,000 dollars... perfect BTC isn't my problem anymore I'm rich wich was my ultimate goal and everyone's goal in here... fine, the bank won, they knocked down the bitcoin system at the price of making every bitcoin holder a multi millionaire... sure that sounds feasible...


Let's assume you're right - In order to buy 10% of the bitcoins on the market the price goes up to $100,000 or even $100,000,000 per coin -  That actually accomplishes my purpose BETTER because it means newbies will feel like they MUST buy into bitcoin because it's clearly going up in value and will never come down.  "I wish I had bought it at $1000 per coin, so I better buy when it's $10,000 per coin so I don't miss out when it becomes $100,000 per coin.    
Again only a few noobs will lose money, the majority of the people (since the bank is buying) will be making profits left to right... Again, you don't seem to understand the power of offer and demand.. 

The higher the price goes, the more attractive it is to those not holding any and the more likely they'll buy at the inflated price.   Then when I'm done accumulating, all the suckers are in the market, and I want to make sure they're never in it again I sell all at once and DO NOT rebuy.  With the largest buyer turning into the largest seller, demand collapses and as the price plummets all the newbies decide to take the loss rather than risk losing EVERYTHING, so they all turn into sellers to.
In order to SELL, people will have to be willing to BUY. Let's say again you bought 5,000,000 coins and the price is now near the $500,000 per BTC... and you start selling.... the price will start to go down and down it's not like you can sell all 5,000,000 coins at the same price... don't you know how an exchange works? Sure you might be able to sell a few at 500,000 and then it will drastically go down to 0.003 and you're stuck with 4,000,000 coins still because nobody will buy you for less than 0.00001 so you just lost an insane amount of money but that's ok, because you're the FED.... again UNFEASIBLE

I can assure you that by the time they buy say 1,000,000 BTC the price would se so high that everyone here would be a millionaire with 8 digits!
your assumption is ok, I'm a bank and I have 10 billion to spare to crash this system... but you don't realize that:

See, as the central bank I don't care about you or the other people who have been invested in bitcoin all along and understand it's value proposition - I actually don't mind if you get rich off this because it exacerbates the wealth disparity in the currency, which makes people not like early adopters.    The only thing I really care about is making sure I HURT newbie bitcoin users so badly that they never even want to hear the word Bitcoin again, and every time someone says it they cringe, responding "it's a scam - Don't lose money like I did"
 Why would you care about hurting a bunch of people and I say a bunch..?? it'll be a minority... you'll lose a shit load of money and a lot of people will be holding that money... IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE AND IT WON'T HAPPEN
sorry, I just got tired of reading nonsense after nonsense, this is a pointless argument. a central bank works thinking cost/benefit and profits doesn't matter if it's privately owned or public. If it's public it has certain responsibilities from the social aspect. Your argument is weak and a bank will never do this, just to "hurt" some newbies in a crypto-currency that is 4 years old and it represents a fraction of the world economy.
You should change the title right now and put "Looks like I didn't know what I was talking about" and get this over with.



A) The other btc holders also know how to play this game
B) Not all bitcoins are for sale.
A) I don't care about you or other bitcoin holders, just like I don't care about people in the gold market who understand and profit from the predictable manipulation.
B) Enough are for sale so long as I don't care about the price because it's all small potatoes compared to the value backing my operation (multiple trillions)

And sure, invest 10 billion in BTC and after you invested 1 billion the price of BTC skyrocketed to $1000, and then invest 2b and it'll go to 10,000 and so on... by the time they invest all the money, others already profited from the spikes...
Who will win?
All of US..
who'll be scared? a few noobs...
If I can prevent the currency from being adopted by the average person, than I win.  My goal isn't to prevent you from getting rich, it's to make sure Bitcoins don't replace Dollars as the currency everyone expects to do business in.   This is a success because Bitcoin is substantially better at being money than really anything else out there, so If I can prevent Bitcoin from becoming the world reserve currency, it means I get to keep running the world money supply.

without the bank example... just look at current prices... up 800%-900% since a year ago... let's pretend this mysterious central bank has been driving the price up...
I already made a shit ton of money... I can easily afford to sell at 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, even 10 before I start losing money!
Anyways, you need to read more about economics. Your idea is unfeasible like I stated before.
I hope that helps as an explanation.
Again, I don't care about you - You'd act in your best interest no matter what I do, I care about your mom and how upset she'll be after buying into bitcoins as an investment when they're worth $1000 each, who sells when they crash to $40 each.  

She'll never go near bitcoin again, I win.