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

[Panthers52]

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.

Bitfinex has been tailoring their operations over the past year and a half or so to appeal to institutions, and apparently have attracted a decent number of institutional customers. Also, if you believe their published orderbook, their BTC/fiat orderbook is by far the most liquid among exchanges. Bitfinex also has an OTC trading desk that apparently has been fairly successful (when a trader buys BTC via OTC from bitfinex, then the OTC trading desk will be effectively short BTC [at an above market basis], and will need to buy BTC to cover their position).

With the above being said (using made up numbers), if someone wanted to 5000 BTC at no more than 102% of the current trading price, they might be able to buy up 4000 BTC on the bitfinex orderbook at that price, but if the orderbook of poloniex and bittrex are also used, they might be able to buy the entire 5000 BTC they want. This could be done by an institutional trader, or by bitfinex themselves to cover an effective short position caused by an OTC trade.

Unfortunately, I am unable to account for the month end price decline issue. Maybe this is noise, maybe there is some other explanation, or maybe the authors are right. I would tend to think this is probably noise.  

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.

Bitmex published a research report on tether this past February in which they found a bank in Puerto Rico they believe is likely holding the USD deposits of tether and bitfinex, as according to publicly available data (that I believe is not available in real time), had USD deposits grow at rates above the growth of USDT in circulation.

Further, tether has shown what is nearly proof of funds in the amount of ~$442 million as of September 2017, which exceeded the amount of USDT in circulation at the time.

The late months of Mt Gox showed what happens when customers are unable to withdraw USD from an exchange -- the price trades at a premium to other exchanges. Gox customers would deposit BTC into their Gox account, sell their BTC, request a USD withdrawal, and eventually cancel their USD withdrawal use that USD to purchase BTC to withdraw and eventually deposit and sell on another exchange. In the case of bitfinex, the USD price of BTC is almost always the same (for all intents and purposes -- it is generally within 30 basis points) of other major exchanges.

Kind Regards
Panthers52

[1713469528]

1713469528

[Karartma1]

@jbreher
Ok, you are skeptic, fine. My question to you would be: are you even using SegWit enabled features in Bitcoin? Have you tried the LN (testnet is fine too) I'm curious to know if you are skeptic on a theoretical level only

[Elwar]

2014:


Today:

[jbreher]

@jbreher
Ok, you are skeptic, fine. My question to you would be: are you even using SegWit enabled features in Bitcoin?

Of course not. I am a Segwit skeptic. Why would I commit any of my funds to something I think is fundamentally flawed? That would be irrational, right?

Have you tried the LN (testnet is fine too) I'm curious to know if you are skeptic on a theoretical level only

No. What does that LN to do with Segwit? I'm not following your train of inquiry here.

Here is a question for you. Are you familiar with the term 'fungibility'? Can you understand how creating two classes of BTC destroys this property? (Well, after claiming one question, you asked two.)

[vroom]

https://satoshis.place is driving Lighting innovation via real-world stress testing. Over 8,000 daily users, 8,000,000 pixels drawn, and 3,000 settled payments. Lightning devs are writing performance patches in direct response to feedback provided by @LightningK0ala

that's more activity then the top 10 ethereum dapps combined.

here is a time lapse video. so NSFW, much dirty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9BMILCC1hY&feature=youtu.be

[Cassius]

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.

Bitfinex has been tailoring their operations over the past year and a half or so to appeal to institutions, and apparently have attracted a decent number of institutional customers. Also, if you believe their published orderbook, their BTC/fiat orderbook is by far the most liquid among exchanges. Bitfinex also has an OTC trading desk that apparently has been fairly successful (when a trader buys BTC via OTC from bitfinex, then the OTC trading desk will be effectively short BTC [at an above market basis], and will need to buy BTC to cover their position).

With the above being said (using made up numbers), if someone wanted to 5000 BTC at no more than 102% of the current trading price, they might be able to buy up 4000 BTC on the bitfinex orderbook at that price, but if the orderbook of poloniex and bittrex are also used, they might be able to buy the entire 5000 BTC they want. This could be done by an institutional trader, or by bitfinex themselves to cover an effective short position caused by an OTC trade.

Unfortunately, I am unable to account for the month end price decline issue. Maybe this is noise, maybe there is some other explanation, or maybe the authors are right. I would tend to think this is probably noise.  

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.

Bitmex published a research report on tether this past February in which they found a bank in Puerto Rico they believe is likely holding the USD deposits of tether and bitfinex, as according to publicly available data (that I believe is not available in real time), had USD deposits grow at rates above the growth of USDT in circulation.

Further, tether has shown what is nearly proof of funds in the amount of ~$442 million as of September 2017, which exceeded the amount of USDT in circulation at the time.

The late months of Mt Gox showed what happens when customers are unable to withdraw USD from an exchange -- the price trades at a premium to other exchanges. Gox customers would deposit BTC into their Gox account, sell their BTC, request a USD withdrawal, and eventually cancel their USD withdrawal use that USD to purchase BTC to withdraw and eventually deposit and sell on another exchange. In the case of bitfinex, the USD price of BTC is almost always the same (for all intents and purposes -- it is generally within 30 basis points) of other major exchanges.

Kind Regards
Panthers52

I'm almost certain that the scam is a slightly different one than originally thought.
1. Create USDT
2. Buy BTC with unbacked USDT, pumping prices
3. Sell BTC at higher prices on OTC, or GDAX
4. Bank fiat, retrospectively backing newly-created USDT
5. Ta-da! Tether is fully backed

This explains anecdotal reports of Tether/Finex bank accounts being stuffed full of cash, but also shady behaviour. They cannot audit, not because they don't have the funds but because they arrived in the wrong order.

[El duderino_]

QUICK list 12288 is finisht GOOD LUCK   WO's

16/04/2018 serveria.com
27/04/2018 BinaryReign
<snip>
10/04/2020 yefi
05/09/2020 samson   
23/06/2021 fortune143             

I really hope I'm wrong on this speculation....

Maybe you see iT wrong and thought iT was @122880 or So  

[Syke]

https://satoshis.place is driving Lighting innovation via real-world stress testing. Over 8,000 daily users, 8,000,000 pixels drawn, and 3,000 settled payments. Lightning devs are writing performance patches in direct response to feedback provided by @LightningK0ala

that's more activity then the top 10 ethereum dapps combined.

here is a time lapse video. so NSFW, much dirty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9BMILCC1hY&feature=youtu.be

Pretty cool http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ is still up.

[greensheep]

Does anyone own a shitcoin? 
http://doiownashitcoin.com/

[samson]

QUICK list 12288 is finisht GOOD LUCK   WO's

16/04/2018 serveria.com
27/04/2018 BinaryReign
<snip>
10/04/2020 yefi
05/09/2020 samson   
23/06/2021 fortune143             

I really hope I'm wrong on this speculation....

Maybe you see iT wrong and thought iT was @122880 or So  

Nope, it's based on a 2 year bear market and next halving date in 2020.

[mindrust]

Does anyone own a shitcoin?  
http://doiownashitcoin.com/

It happens to be I own 5 shitcoins *one of them is ltc, half-shitcoin* out of 5 6. (my non-shitcoin pick is obviously btc, and none of the other 4 are bcash)   I don't care though they are mostly airdrops or similar stuff which I got for free.

I made some quick searches and I guess I should invest some in xmr and etc too.

[greensheep]

Does anyone own a shitcoin?  
http://doiownashitcoin.com/

It happens to be I own 4 shitcoins out of 5. (my non-shitcoin pick is obviously btc, and none of the other 4 are bcash)   I don't care though they are mostly airdrops or similar stuff which I got for free.

I made some quick searches and I guess I should invest some in xmr and etc too.

ETC was also surprising to me

[El duderino_]

Does anyone own a shitcoin? 
http://doiownashitcoin.com/

yeah i think 10-15 procent of my crypto is in shitcoins .... just for sport and you never know thinking... like buying selling few alts as gamble and hodling a very few alts for longer term ,and  few in masternodes .....

[El duderino_]

 

[RivAngE]

Does anyone own a shitcoin? 
http://doiownashitcoin.com/

What is defined as shitcoin though?
For me copy/paste coins that offer nothing more than a blockchain and empty promises for the future are shitcoins. Among the "just blockchains" which only transfer coins from one address to another, I only accept BTC/LTC/XRP as real coins because they're widely used by people and even accepted (or used in the case of XRP) by businesses.

I also hold ARK, ETN and RVN which I consider "start-ups with good potential but some risk to turn into useless shitcoins"... draw your own conclusions!

[sirazimuth]

Oldie but goodie...

https://youtu.be/3gfntBEI3Aw

[Karartma1]

@jbreher
Ok, you are skeptic, fine. My question to you would be: are you even using SegWit enabled features in Bitcoin?

Of course not. I am a Segwit skeptic. Why would I commit any of my funds to something I think is fundamentally flawed? That would be irrational, right? (1)

Have you tried the LN (testnet is fine too) I'm curious to know if you are skeptic on a theoretical level only

No. What does that LN to do with Segwit? I'm not following your train of inquiry here.

Here is a question for you. Are you familiar with the term 'fungibility'? Can you understand how creating two classes of BTC destroys this property? (Well, after claiming one question, you asked two.) (2)

(1) Fine but to me is like "I don't like carrots!" Have you ever tried them? "no, I think they would kill me".
(2) No SegWit, no LN easy.

Why would I commit any of my funds...

You can use testnet coins........

Fungibility: yes I know what it is and that's a concern for me as well but I know a few ways to protect my privacy. They are costly but I don't care since I value my privacy a lot.

[RivAngE]

What do you think about Bitcoin not breaking the support 5500€ / 6800$?

I'm not very confident that this will be the bottom, there was not enough panic selling and FUD imo! Maybe we'll see a break of the support first, then a bull run for new highs can start.

[4rt3m]

Prostitutional investor – person who has a few thousands Twitter followers and advertise some type of crypto-currency for a small amount of tokens of this currency.

http://doiownashitcoin.com

[Wekkel]

Does anyone own a shitcoin? 
http://doiownashitcoin.com/

At least they got BCH right