Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[jojo69]

Please elaborate - you mean money laundering is what mining is all about?

I wouldn't say "all about" but it is certainly a great avenue.  If I've got fiat I can't move, but I can turn it into miners I seriously could give a fuck if they ROI.

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[jojo69]

I'm just trying to adjust to the reality on the ground. Not sure what micropayments have to do with the price of eggs at this point.

Oh yeah, well, you're the one equating my discussion of micropayments with the slump in the price of corn, so... yeah.

I hold you personally responsible for most of the things that happen here. I thought that was understood.

fair enough

[cAPSLOCK]

Meritorious^

Oh... and in case you think I am full of shit.  I am not.  Well.. I might should qualify that.  Here:



And for BBL:

That's a Toft ATB, SSL Converters, a Millennia Preamp (Avalon Shavalon, but it needs new tubes), a pile of handmade (I made 'em) Seventh circle preamps (circuits: neve 1073, API, Jensen twin servo), a pretty cool Aphex 207, and a dynaudio BM15a monitor.  Also some shitty "bitcoinisgoibngdown" wine.  And yes, I live in the town you live in.   ((((but yes, your introversion and opsec will keep you from ever meeting me))))

[Tyr808]

I read through the Tether manipulation paper. IMO it made two convincing points:

#1 Someone has a habit of doing this:
 - Issuing new USDT
 - Within days, moving that USDT to BitFinex, Bittrex, and/or Poloniex
 - Using that USDT to buy crypto (seemingly a portfolio of BTC & others). They especially like to buy crypto when the price is just below whole numbers.
 - Moving the resulting crypto back to BitFinex
 - Rarely or never selling the crypto for USDT again
 
The authors argue that this is Tether/BitFinex themselves, and I think that this is in fact the most likely explanation. But the authors didn't address the alternative possibility of this being a particularly ham-fisted whale who is a close partner of Tether.

#2 Due to end-of-month trading, Tether has probably always been trading with USD deposited with them (fractional-reserve), though at least until March 2017, USDT was probably not complete monopoly money, since they did go to the effort of achieving an end-of-month USD balance.

The authors also tried to argue some other points which I didn't find convincing.


I took the paper's data at face value. There were several points where I thought that they could be cherry-picking data, but it's too difficult to check this sort of thing. Cherry-picking / confirmation bias is especially easy to do with block-chain analysis. And I know for a fact that their method of grouping block-chain transactions is not robust in general, though it probably was sufficient for what they did here.

I've thought for a long time that USDT is almost certainly a scam, and this paper makes me think so even more. Though I was actually a little surprised that this provides evidence (via the end-of-month trading) that USDT ever had any real USD.

The paper estimates that if you removed the USDT issuance events which the paper's authors regard as most likely to be BTC price manipulation, the BTC price would be $4100 as of March 31. But that's based on a whole pile of assumptions; I wouldn't give it much credence. I think that the collapse of USDT will be mostly limited to the obvious direct effects (ie. some exchanges would have major troubles, there'd be many people stuck with worthless USDT, etc.), and there would not somehow be a natural "rollback" of any gains which monopoly-money USDT may have driven. Also, the paper makes clear that all major crypto was affected, often much more than BTC, so this isn't any sort of argument against BTC in particular.

Very interesting paper Theymos.
My two points:
1. I won't keep a cent in Bitfinex because there's a chance this will end very badly.
2. SHingTF won't result in a BTC price correction. USDT holders will be the ones paying the price. I don't see how things could go differently from this.

---

To anyone thinking BTC price will drop once the USDT shenanigans are exposed:

Imagine there's a small planet of fishermen who use shells as currency. There's a limited supply of shells.

One day an astronaut arrives  from an advanced planet; he carries a secret device which allows him to create several fake shells.
For some weeks the astronaut buys a lot of local diamonds (unique and also limited in supply). He pays with his synthetised shells but the fishermen don't know they're fake and thus his market demand drives the diamonds prices up.

One day the astronaut returns to his planet with the diamonds and then the fishermen find out all the shells he gave them were fake and have now turned to ash.

Will the price of diamonds go down?

Nope.

The fishermen will still use shells to buy diamonds, and astronaut gone or not, there's still the same amount of shells around and the same amount of diamonds.

What happens next? A few possibilities
1. Other astronauts from other planets will come back with fake shells, but hopefully the fishermen won't be fooled (regulations on the crypto market coming next)
2. A proxy will come back to sell the astronaut's diamonds amd he'd be ready to cash them out at a slightly lower price via OTC trades.
3. Fishermen will lose faith in shell-to-diamond trades and will prefer gemstone-to-gemstone P2P trades (raise of dex vs centralized?)
4. The space police will find the astronaut and force him to refund those he gave fake shells to; he might do that with giving them back diamonds or other gemstones.
5. Etc

If diamonds were a speculative asset like BTC, the price would go down.

I don't know how much BTC could be deemed a speculative asset. Nations, wikileaks and politically unstable countries have used it as a way to store or move capital.

But anyway even if it was almost entirely a speculative asset, why would the fishermen's diamonds price go down?

[windjc]

I read through the Tether manipulation paper. IMO it made two convincing points:

#1 Someone has a habit of doing this:
 - Issuing new USDT
 - Within days, moving that USDT to BitFinex, Bittrex, and/or Poloniex
 - Using that USDT to buy crypto (seemingly a portfolio of BTC & others). They especially like to buy crypto when the price is just below whole numbers.
 - Moving the resulting crypto back to BitFinex
 - Rarely or never selling the crypto for USDT again
 
The authors argue that this is Tether/BitFinex themselves, and I think that this is in fact the most likely explanation. But the authors didn't address the alternative possibility of this being a particularly ham-fisted whale who is a close partner of Tether.

#2 Due to end-of-month trading, Tether has probably always been trading with USD deposited with them (fractional-reserve), though at least until March 2017, USDT was probably not complete monopoly money, since they did go to the effort of achieving an end-of-month USD balance.

The authors also tried to argue some other points which I didn't find convincing.


I took the paper's data at face value. There were several points where I thought that they could be cherry-picking data, but it's too difficult to check this sort of thing. Cherry-picking / confirmation bias is especially easy to do with block-chain analysis. And I know for a fact that their method of grouping block-chain transactions is not robust in general, though it probably was sufficient for what they did here.

I've thought for a long time that USDT is almost certainly a scam, and this paper makes me think so even more. Though I was actually a little surprised that this provides evidence (via the end-of-month trading) that USDT ever had any real USD.

The paper estimates that if you removed the USDT issuance events which the paper's authors regard as most likely to be BTC price manipulation, the BTC price would be $4100 as of March 31. But that's based on a whole pile of assumptions; I wouldn't give it much credence. I think that the collapse of USDT will be mostly limited to the obvious direct effects (ie. some exchanges would have major troubles, there'd be many people stuck with worthless USDT, etc.), and there would not somehow be a natural "rollback" of any gains which monopoly-money USDT may have driven. Also, the paper makes clear that all major crypto was affected, often much more than BTC, so this isn't any sort of argument against BTC in particular.

Meh. First it was the Willy Bot now its Tether.

There is no unseen force causing bull markets just as there is no unseen manipulation causing bear markets and corrections.

If the Willy Bot was for real, how is it we went to $20k anyway just a few years later?

Or am I suppose to believe that the peaks would have been $100 and $4100 in '13 and '17 if willy bot and tether never existed?

Why can't people just accept that there are millions of people on now dozens of exchanges in dozens of countries buying and selling. Every single one of these people is buying and selling based on some human emotion(s). THATS WHY THE MARKET GOES UP AND DOWN.

[jonoiv]

fool me once bitcoin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ux3DKxxFoM

[jojo69]

nice gear

[cAPSLOCK]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

If you have a Whole Foods (Amazon-whiteguilthippiefoodstore)  in your area you might procure yourself a bottle of the Don Simon Cabernet Sauvingnon.

It's currently ~ 0.0006 BTC.  You can afford it.

0.00016 in Barcelona

I don't drink that GARBAGE!  I drink " Don Simon *Selection*"

[savetherainforest]

Meritorious^

Oh... and in case you think I am full of shit.  I am not.  Well.. I might should qualify that.  Here:



And for BBL:

That's a Toft ATB, SSL Converters, a Millennia Preamp (Avalon Shavalon, but it needs new tubes), a pile of handmade (I made 'em) Seventh circle preamps (circuits: neve 1073, API, Jensen twin servo), a pretty cool Aphex 207, and a dynaudio BM15a monitor.  Also some shitty "bitcoinisgoibngdown" wine.  And yes, I live in the town you live in.  ((((but yes, your introversion and opsec will keep you from ever meeting me))))

YOU PEASANT!!! DON't DRINK from a Nutella glass!!!

[bitserve]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

If you have a Whole Foods (Amazon-whiteguilthippiefoodstore)  in your area you might procure yourself a bottle of the Don Simon Cabernet Sauvingnon.

It's currently ~ 0.0006 BTC.  You can afford it.

0.00016 in Barcelona

I don't drink that GARBAGE!  I drink " Don Simon *Selection*"

Ok, ok.... what about this Don Simon *PREMIUM*?



Btw, it looks like even mentioning drinking Don Simon was enough capitulation to deserve a little pump

[Tyr808]

I read through the Tether manipulation paper. IMO it made two convincing points:

#1 Someone has a habit of doing this:
 - Issuing new USDT
 - Within days, moving that USDT to BitFinex, Bittrex, and/or Poloniex
 - Using that USDT to buy crypto (seemingly a portfolio of BTC & others). They especially like to buy crypto when the price is just below whole numbers.
 - Moving the resulting crypto back to BitFinex
 - Rarely or never selling the crypto for USDT again
 
The authors argue that this is Tether/BitFinex themselves, and I think that this is in fact the most likely explanation. But the authors didn't address the alternative possibility of this being a particularly ham-fisted whale who is a close partner of Tether.

#2 Due to end-of-month trading, Tether has probably always been trading with USD deposited with them (fractional-reserve), though at least until March 2017, USDT was probably not complete monopoly money, since they did go to the effort of achieving an end-of-month USD balance.

The authors also tried to argue some other points which I didn't find convincing.


I took the paper's data at face value. There were several points where I thought that they could be cherry-picking data, but it's too difficult to check this sort of thing. Cherry-picking / confirmation bias is especially easy to do with block-chain analysis. And I know for a fact that their method of grouping block-chain transactions is not robust in general, though it probably was sufficient for what they did here.

I've thought for a long time that USDT is almost certainly a scam, and this paper makes me think so even more. Though I was actually a little surprised that this provides evidence (via the end-of-month trading) that USDT ever had any real USD.

The paper estimates that if you removed the USDT issuance events which the paper's authors regard as most likely to be BTC price manipulation, the BTC price would be $4100 as of March 31. But that's based on a whole pile of assumptions; I wouldn't give it much credence. I think that the collapse of USDT will be mostly limited to the obvious direct effects (ie. some exchanges would have major troubles, there'd be many people stuck with worthless USDT, etc.), and there would not somehow be a natural "rollback" of any gains which monopoly-money USDT may have driven. Also, the paper makes clear that all major crypto was affected, often much more than BTC, so this isn't any sort of argument against BTC in particular.

Meh. First it was the Willy Bot now its Tether.

There is no unseen force causing bull markets just as there is no unseen manipulation causing bear markets and corrections.

If the Willy Bot was for real, how is it we went to $20k anyway just a few years later?

Or am I suppose to believe that the peaks would have been $100 and $4100 in '13 and '17 if willy bot and tether never existed?

Why can't people just accept that there are millions of people on now dozens of exchanges in dozens of countries buying and selling. Every single one of these people is buying and selling based on some human emotion(s). THATS WHY THE MARKET GOES UP AND DOWN.

Would have made sense until a few years ago.

But today that looks like a rather simplistic view of market dynamics. It completely keeps out of the equation the tremendous impact of derivates, and the resulting market manipulation that can be determined by their use.

It has to be "unseen forces".

[bones261]

Is this some weird European joke? I don't get it, by the way why is no one talking about the rise right now? Is this shit not exciting? Too drunk already to see we revesered most of today's dump?

Meh. What was more exciting was the show of strong support when the bears tried to dump this down below 6100. However, this recent little bump seems to show that the resistance at this level isn't very strong at all. Maybe it is a good sign that the bears are running low on ammo, at least for now..

[Toxic2040]

I read through the Tether manipulation paper. IMO it made two convincing points:

#1 Someone has a habit of doing this:
 - Issuing new USDT
 - Within days, moving that USDT to BitFinex, Bittrex, and/or Poloniex
 - Using that USDT to buy crypto (seemingly a portfolio of BTC & others). They especially like to buy crypto when the price is just below whole numbers.
 - Moving the resulting crypto back to BitFinex
 - Rarely or never selling the crypto for USDT again
 
The authors argue that this is Tether/BitFinex themselves, and I think that this is in fact the most likely explanation. But the authors didn't address the alternative possibility of this being a particularly ham-fisted whale who is a close partner of Tether.

#2 Due to end-of-month trading, Tether has probably always been trading with USD deposited with them (fractional-reserve), though at least until March 2017, USDT was probably not complete monopoly money, since they did go to the effort of achieving an end-of-month USD balance.

The authors also tried to argue some other points which I didn't find convincing.


I took the paper's data at face value. There were several points where I thought that they could be cherry-picking data, but it's too difficult to check this sort of thing. Cherry-picking / confirmation bias is especially easy to do with block-chain analysis. And I know for a fact that their method of grouping block-chain transactions is not robust in general, though it probably was sufficient for what they did here.

I've thought for a long time that USDT is almost certainly a scam, and this paper makes me think so even more. Though I was actually a little surprised that this provides evidence (via the end-of-month trading) that USDT ever had any real USD.

The paper estimates that if you removed the USDT issuance events which the paper's authors regard as most likely to be BTC price manipulation, the BTC price would be $4100 as of March 31. But that's based on a whole pile of assumptions; I wouldn't give it much credence. I think that the collapse of USDT will be mostly limited to the obvious direct effects (ie. some exchanges would have major troubles, there'd be many people stuck with worthless USDT, etc.), and there would not somehow be a natural "rollback" of any gains which monopoly-money USDT may have driven. Also, the paper makes clear that all major crypto was affected, often much more than BTC, so this isn't any sort of argument against BTC in particular.

+1 WOsMerit

I concur with your deductions. My biggest problem is exactly what you pointed out about cherry picking data points. What else intrigues me is those EOM buy backs. It is interesting to think we have been floating on that buffer for several months now and it didnt come apart..completely anyway.
From the base price of $4100 with those data points removed compared to the current market price of $6.4k, would it be reasonable to assume 64% of the tethers are backed by fiat? Is this logical? The ROI since inception must fully cover all assets by now. Big ass rabbit hole..

I find myself playing devil's advocate here and feeling kinda slimy because of it. I just dont know and to top that off..does it even matter?

--------------
Bitcoin

1h
Breaking out of the downward channel.


4h
Testing resistance/support at a fib.


D
Still well below averages but weakly recovering.

[realr0ach]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

Seeing as how I have TERA2 on ignore, I dub thee, the new, "official" Bitcointalk Wall Observer "Debbie Downer"

So, why are you so down on Lightning, Debbie ?

Lightning network has always been garbage.  If these things didn't require putting all transactions in a common que, bitcoin would have already utilized parallel scaling in the first place.  Lightning network can only function as a completely centralized hub and spoke model for numerous reasons like liquidity and needing a common que to prevent attack.  Or to put it simply, if you're not using something like a longest chain as a focal point in an open join/leave system, it's always going to turn into a system of 'trusted' nodes.  

You don't get to just 'remove' the focal point.  A focal point is required.  If you remove the longest chain focal point, the new focal point becomes trust by default.  We are Walmart, trust our node because we're Walmart.  We at Walmart also only trust nodes run by Goldman Sachs.  Trust us both.  We also refuse to route any transactions to any other nodes.  None have proper liquidity to route anyway.

At the end of the day, these are all stupid and dysfunctional Rube Goldberg machines that are hyped by scammers.  It's 100% impossible to create a decentralized digital currency.  There is no reason whatsoever for any of this stuff to exist in comparison to silver and gold.

[cAPSLOCK]

nice gear

Thank you sir... A previous life...

[cAPSLOCK]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

If you have a Whole Foods (Amazon-whiteguilthippiefoodstore)  in your area you might procure yourself a bottle of the Don Simon Cabernet Sauvingnon.

It's currently ~ 0.0006 BTC.  You can afford it.

0.00016 in Barcelona

I don't drink that GARBAGE!  I drink " Don Simon *Selection*"

Ok, ok.... what about this Don Simon *PREMIUM*?



Btw, it looks like even mentioning drinking Don Simon was enough capitulation to deserve a little pump

God! Did I not do enough? Mention it not explicitly!

[cAPSLOCK]

Meritorious^

Oh... and in case you think I am full of shit.  I am not.  Well.. I might should qualify that.  Here:



And for BBL:

That's a Toft ATB, SSL Converters, a Millennia Preamp (Avalon Shavalon, but it needs new tubes), a pile of handmade (I made 'em) Seventh circle preamps (circuits: neve 1073, API, Jensen twin servo), a pretty cool Aphex 207, and a dynaudio BM15a monitor.  Also some shitty "bitcoinisgoibngdown" wine.  And yes, I live in the town you live in.  ((((but yes, your introversion and opsec will keep you from ever meeting me))))

YOU PEASANT!!! DON't DRINK from a Nutella glass!!!

Is this some weird European joke? I don't get it, by the way why is no one talking about the rise right now? Is this shit not exciting? Too drunk already to see we revesered most of today's dump?

Only if Texas is in Europe.

I just want to go down as shitposting at the very bottom.

Please, Bitcoin Jesus?

[mymenace]

CRAB-17, Bogdanoff Twins top secret plans for Bitcoin. (LEAKED)



https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BLX/KcRGLOaZ-CRAB-17-Bogdanoff-Twins-top-secret-plans-for-Bitcoin-LEAKED/

entry point from 5000/6000 for push to 19000 was always institutional investors


The game they played back down to 6000 (got caught out with some pump) back down again and now their last ditch effort to drop the price as low as possible for their friends

We the adopters can now dump on institutional investors


Huge

[infofront]

[Elwar]

I will just leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdOt7UUAPiQ