That many components of the establishment are opposed to Bitcoin is no surprise to many on this forum. Although many methods of attacking Bitcoin have been voiced I haven't heard of a general economic attack in the form of price suppression much like in what is done with gold and precious metals. While the exchanges lack some of the tools used in the precious metals markets (long contracts, short contracts, selling short and many others like an exchange that can change the rules on a whim) the forces wishing to suppress the price could easily buy up a few million USD worth of BTC over the period of a few days (or whatever time-frame to least impact the market on a upward trend) and then slowly sell at a loss and attempt to create a downward trend. But why stop there? Likewise they could help foster the growth and creation of future bubbles and try to make them as significant as possible in order to keep merchants afraid of Bitcoin. With the additional media blitzkrieg of fear-mongering (and much of it not totally ill-founded with the existing infrastructure, client, etc) that you can have your currency easily stolen it looks like Bitcoin has a steep road ahead of it.
Cheers to all who are up for the fight. Of which I count myself.
My guess is that it would only take a few million to do and much much more is spent suppressing the precious metals market to which Bitcoin is akin to.
Is there something I'm overlooking here or is this as easy as it seems for a power that can print money endlessly...?
