Could the banks really be causing the current price serge of bitcoin ?

[fixxi.net]

A guys here suggests that the price increase could have been caused by central banks buying bitcoins in order to crash it eventually.

Is there any data or proof from the trading houses who really has been buying so many bitcoins ? Although if banks were buying it they would use "agents", wouldn't buy in the name of the bank ....

I guess the trading houses would know more, has there been trading house that has commented on this publicly ? I guess few insiders know better what is going on.

http://www.naturalnews.com/039865_bitcoin_crash_prediction_Mike_Adams.html

[nitrous]

I doubt it, Mike Adams seems to just be taking advantage of the opportunity for publicity, most of his claims are unfounded:

• He didn't predict the crash with astounding accuracy. He said that in the future, the price will fall faster than experienced in any other currency, but this was expected by most as it has happened before. He didn't give a date, he just said sometime in the future, that's not an accurate prediction.
• The price crashed because people got scared and the fast growth was unsustainable.
• The crash was inevitable, but MtGox's high lag exacerbated the problem by making increasing the fear.
• Adams' suggestion that bitcoin retailers such as Reddit will now be put off is unfounded. The high volatility has been known about for a long time, and the price drop shouldn't really surprise anyone.
• If people keep believing these rumours and getting scared, then it is hard to see the price recovering soon. There is absolutely no evidence so far that any major bank is to blame, and until the facts state otherwise, people should just let the price settle and start to move again.
• Eventually, bitcoins will find a stable equilibrium when enough people use it, in the meantime volatility will remain high, as bitcoins are a true test of free market forces balancing the price

As for your question about trading houses, MtGox claimed that the crash was a result of MtGox's success, with no mention of banks, so I think I can safely say that the banks likely had nothing to do with this.

EDIT: I just watched the video, he said, quote: "it doesn't mean it's going to crash tomorrow, it may still go much, much higher. It could reach $500, it could reach $1000, even $10,000 per bitcoin". I'm not sure how much you can trust the article. He could be right, but purely from what I've read in the article, I don't consider him highly credible.

[fixxi.net]

• The price crashed because people got scared and the fast growth was unsustainable.
• The crash was inevitable, but MtGox's high lag exacerbated the problem by making increasing the fear.

When did the price drop exactly started ? Was it caused by mtgox servers being unresponsive, or started before that event ? Just wondering what triggered the drop.

My opinion is that Bitcoin in the longterm will be stable as being the first competitor to the banking system. But being traded for bank money, the banks would certainly start some moves to destabilize it or even buy it out.  That is the biggest issue I have btw with Bitcoin... banks could buy it out.

[nitrous]

• The price crashed because people got scared and the fast growth was unsustainable.
• The crash was inevitable, but MtGox's high lag exacerbated the problem by making increasing the fear.

When did the price drop exactly started ? Was it caused by mtgox servers being unresponsive, or started before that event ? Just wondering what triggered the drop.

My opinion is that Bitcoin in the longterm will be stable as being the first competitor to the banking system. But being traded for bank money, the banks would certainly start some moves to destabilize it or even buy it out.  That is the biggest issue I have btw with Bitcoin... banks could buy it out.

I'm not too sure of the specifics, I wasn't really following it when it started to happen. The MtGox servers typically have a couple of seconds of lag in normal operation, but I think them becoming unresponsive would have happened shortly after the trigger.

You are right that the banks certainly have the capability and resources to buy out bitcoins, but I think that they won't be too interested in doing so. Yesterday's spectacle combined with the massive preceding growth proves its high volatility, and so I don't think banks would see it as competitive, rather they will probably consider it an experiment.

If you are deciding whether or not to invest in bitcoins, what yesterday should tell you is that you should only invest what you can afford to lose. If you make a massive profit by cashing out at peak price, then congratulations. If on the other hand you lose the money due to a further crash or the banks getting involved, then it doesn't matter because you would have invested some spare money.

There's still a lot of potential yet for bitcoins, and the risk of banks buying it out is a future problem (years away, if it ever even does happen). I think they would find it difficult however, as under normal circumstances most people don't want to sell bitcoins and instead try to hoard it, so the banks would find it hard to buy up enough BTC to destabilise it.