Bitfinex - FRAUD, price manipulation, fake transactions

[deisik]

But it doesn't actually matter since the stock kings which you are likely to name have never made like 1000% profits within a single year (I mean after they have become the kings, obviously), so your whole point is not viable anyway. I refer to your comparison of stock markets to Bitcoin.

This is a very different argument, you are basically just saying it has gone up too fast

This is not so much an argument

As a counterargument to your claim that Bitcoin is like any other regular stock market out there, which I can't agree with. Well, to be honest, I never thought of that, i.e. about Bitcoin price rising too fast, but why not? After all, I'm speaking about the rise and the fall, not so much about just the fall alone taken separately from the preceding rise. This is what volatility is all about, right? And if it makes my point clearer, then you're welcome. Really, if the price rises too fast, we could very well expect it to fall as fast, as simple as it gets

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[TheQuin]

And if it makes my point clearer, then you're welcome.

It doesn’t, I’m just trying to get to the underlying reasoning to your argument.

You started off by arguing:

In fact, the price growth which is inevitable with more money being poured into the system will cause even higher price fluctuations (in relative terms) because the monetary supply (i.e. the number of coins mined to date) remains the same while the market supply should necessarily run dry at higher prices on average. Otherwise the prices just wouldn't rise. As a consequence, the whole market becomes thin, and therefore it turns out to be more susceptible to whales and those who become whales at these prices when they start dumping their stashes

The first bolded part I think is wrong. The phrase “higher price fluctuations“ I understand to mean volatility, I’ll get on to that in a bit. I started off by pointing that the reasoning you gave in the second bolded part is wrong. The word trade by its very definition involves to items being traded. Price rising doesn’t make them any scarcer. If limited Bitcoin supply is a factor it in no way limits the supply of dollars to buy them. So that is only a supply and demand driver for the price to further increase.
The use of the stock market analogy was only to make this point, we could equally use any type of market.

Bitcoin is the king while there are no kings among stocks.

So, take Gold instead, it is king amongst metals. Does it scarcity become more at higher prices? Is it more volatile? Is it more likely to crash?
At higher prices it is possible that people may be more inclined to hoard it thus making gold that is available to buy scarcer and further driving the price higher. This makes a new price discovery at the higher price as new buyers become reluctant to pay ever increasing prices. The price settles down at the new value and volatility decreases. There is no link between high prices and volatility.

After all, I'm speaking about the rise and the fall, not so much about just the fall alone taken separately from the preceding rise. This is what volatility is all about, right?

What is volatility and what causes it?

Volatility is a statistical measure of dispersion, the size of the range of values, so refers to size of the change of the value. So, the question boils down to what makes the value change. The value is the derived from the sum of what all market participants think it is. That is driven mainly by fundamentals and human emotions. Bitcoin is a young and uncertain market and is therefore going to be susceptible to much larger swings in value as new information is discovered and interpreted frequently. There is no correlation between higher prices and higher volatility.

[deisik]

The first bolded part I think is wrong. The phrase “higher price fluctuations“ I understand to mean volatility, I’ll get on to that in a bit. I started off by pointing that the reasoning you gave in the second bolded part is wrong. The word trade by its very definition involves to items being traded. Price rising doesn’t make them any scarcer. If limited Bitcoin supply is a factor it in no way limits the supply of dollars to buy them. So that is only a supply and demand driver for the price to further increase

I disagree with that

Price rising makes things more scarce at that price level specifically. Well, actually it may not work with things which have an unlimited supply, but it is certainly the case with things which are scarce on their own (like Bitcoin with its 21M supply of coins). Otherwise, there wouldn't a price rise in the first place. In general, your claim is in direct contradiction to basic market laws. In layman terms, if something goes up in price, it pretty much means either supply runs dry or demand is expanding, or both. Any of these means more scarcity. In a nutshell, no price rise without an increase in scarcity

So, take Gold instead, it is king amongst metals. Does it scarcity become more at higher prices? Is it more volatile? Is it more likely to crash?

We are getting straight into gory details

Which make these examples not very useful overall. In case of gold, more specifically, it is not actually gold value which is rising, it is the dollar value going down like it happened in 2009-2011 during the rounds of the so-called quantitative easing. Basically, gold value remains more or less the same over decades. In fact, it even goes down somewhat. Apart from that, we don't know whether it is people hoarding gold or some governments (like those of Russia and China). In other words, leave gold alone

After all, I'm speaking about the rise and the fall, not so much about just the fall alone taken separately from the preceding rise. This is what volatility is all about, right?

What is volatility and what causes it?

Volatility is a statistical measure of dispersion, the size of the range of values, so refers to size of the change of the value. So, the question boils down to what makes the value change. The value is the derived from the sum of what all market participants think it is. That is driven mainly by fundamentals and human emotions. Bitcoin is a young and uncertain market and is therefore going to be susceptible to much larger swings in value as new information is discovered and interpreted frequently. There is no correlation between higher prices and higher volatility

O'really? I remember you were saying different things (something like correlation doesn't mean causation). Just take a look at the charts and you will see that the charts confirm my view. Whether it is a causal effect of higher prices is debatable, of course, but the correlation is certainly there

[TheQuin]

The first bolded part I think is wrong. The phrase “higher price fluctuations“ I understand to mean volatility, I’ll get on to that in a bit. I started off by pointing that the reasoning you gave in the second bolded part is wrong. The word trade by its very definition involves to items being traded. Price rising doesn’t make them any scarcer. If limited Bitcoin supply is a factor it in no way limits the supply of dollars to buy them. So that is only a supply and demand driver for the price to further increase

I disagree with that

That's probably because you focus on the less important parts of the case I'm putting forward.

Price rising makes things more scarce at that price level specifically.

I didn't say at that price level. I said, "Price rising doesn’t make them any scarcer". From most of this reply I think you have misunderstood that phrase so let me try again. Something being scarce can be the cause of it increasing in price but something increasing in price cannot cause it to become scarce.

Well, actually it may not work with things which have an unlimited supply, but it is certainly the case with things which are scarce on their own (like Bitcoin with its 21M supply of coins). Otherwise, there wouldn't a price rise in the first place. In general, your claim is in direct contradiction to basic market laws.

No, again because that is not what I claimed. What I said was price may well rise because of scarcity but a high price does not cause scarcity.

In layman terms, if something goes up in price, it pretty much means either supply runs dry or demand is expanding, or both. Any of these means more scarcity.

It means demand is exceeding supply and nothing more can be inferred.

In a nutshell, no price rise without an increase in scarcity

In a nutshell, you haven't understood that I am disagreeing with your original statement:

In fact, the price growth which is inevitable with more money being poured into the system will cause even higher price fluctuations

Price growth doesn't cause greater fluctuations.

Which make these examples not very useful overall.

They can be very useful to make a simple point but become completely worthless if you then waste time arguing the intricacies of every difference.

O'really? I remember you were saying different things (something like correlation doesn't mean causation). Just take a look at the charts and you will see that the charts confirm my view. Whether it is a causal effect of higher prices is debatable, of course, but the correlation is certainly there

Yes, correlation doesn't mean causation is not the same as correlation can't mean causation.

If you take a look at some charts you will be able to find many examples of where something has traded in a price range for a long period then a period of volatility has occurred and then it has settled down into a new price range much higher than the previous one and volatility has subsided again. Again I am disagreeing with your assertions that something must be more volatile at higher prices. This simply isn't the case. I did waste my time explaining to you what does cause volatility but you, of course, focused on disagreeing with everything else I said and completely missing the point.

[deisik]

The first bolded part I think is wrong. The phrase “higher price fluctuations“ I understand to mean volatility, I’ll get on to that in a bit. I started off by pointing that the reasoning you gave in the second bolded part is wrong. The word trade by its very definition involves to items being traded. Price rising doesn’t make them any scarcer. If limited Bitcoin supply is a factor it in no way limits the supply of dollars to buy them. So that is only a supply and demand driver for the price to further increase

I disagree with that

That's probably because you focus on the less important parts of the case I'm putting forward.

Price rising makes things more scarce at that price level specifically.

I didn't say at that price level. I said, "Price rising doesn’t make them any scarcer". From most of this reply I think you have misunderstood that phrase so let me try again. Something being scarce can be the cause of it increasing in price but something increasing in price cannot cause it to become scarce.

Well, actually it may not work with things which have an unlimited supply, but it is certainly the case with things which are scarce on their own (like Bitcoin with its 21M supply of coins). Otherwise, there wouldn't a price rise in the first place. In general, your claim is in direct contradiction to basic market laws.

No, again because that is not what I claimed. What I said was price may well rise because of scarcity but a high price does not cause scarcity

Then what's your point?

I don't see any connection to my claim. As I see it, it is pretty meaningless. Well, not so much meaningless as irrelevant to the matter discussed. Technically, you are wrong even in that since you obviously think that something is scarce just because it has limited supply. This is a wrong approach to scarcity because, for example, 21M bitcoins taken on their own are neither scarce nor abundant. Scarcity refers to the amount of something related to the number of people using it. And guess what, higher prices mean more people using bitcoins and hence bitcoins become more scarce since otherwise no higher prices are possible. As simple as that

O'really? I remember you were saying different things (something like correlation doesn't mean causation). Just take a look at the charts and you will see that the charts confirm my view. Whether it is a causal effect of higher prices is debatable, of course, but the correlation is certainly there

Yes, correlation doesn't mean causation is not the same as correlation can't mean causation.

If you take a look at some charts you will be able to find many examples of where something has traded in a price range for a long period then a period of volatility has occurred and then it has settled down into a new price range much higher than the previous one and volatility has subsided again. Again I am disagreeing with your assertions that something must be more volatile at higher prices. This simply isn't the case

This is not about volatility and some charts in general, this is about volatility of Bitcoin and its charts specifically

[TheQuin]

Then what's your point?

This

If you take a look at some charts you will be able to find many examples of where something has traded in a price range for a long period then a period of volatility has occurred and then it has settled down into a new price range much higher than the previous one and volatility has subsided again. Again I am disagreeing with your assertions that something must be more volatile at higher prices. This simply isn't the case.

and this

Volatility is a statistical measure of dispersion, the size of the range of values, so refers to size of the change of the value. So, the question boils down to what makes the value change. The value is the derived from the sum of what all market participants think it is. That is driven mainly by fundamentals and human emotions. Bitcoin is a young and uncertain market and is therefore going to be susceptible to much larger swings in value as new information is discovered and interpreted frequently. There is no correlation between higher prices and higher volatility.

I don't see any connection to my claim.

In fact, the price growth which is inevitable with more money being poured into the system will cause even higher price fluctuations

higher price fluctuations = volatility

Hence the connection to me saying it doesn't

As I see it, it is pretty meaningless. Well, not so much meaningless as irrelevant to the matter discussed.

That is true of the next bit.

Technically, you are wrong even in that since you obviously think that something is scarce just because it has limited supply. This is a wrong approach to scarcity because, for example, 21M bitcoins taken on their own are neither scarce nor abundant. Scarcity refers to the amount of something related to the number of people using it. And guess what, higher prices mean more people using bitcoins and hence bitcoins become more scarce since otherwise no higher prices are possible. As simple as that

[deisik]

As I see it, it is pretty meaningless. Well, not so much meaningless as irrelevant to the matter discussed.

That is true of the next bit.

Technically, you are wrong even in that since you obviously think that something is scarce just because it has limited supply. This is a wrong approach to scarcity because, for example, 21M bitcoins taken on their own are neither scarce nor abundant. Scarcity refers to the amount of something related to the number of people using it. And guess what, higher prices mean more people using bitcoins and hence bitcoins become more scarce since otherwise no higher prices are possible. As simple as that

You may think of it as just being a side note

In respect to volatility being "a statistical measure of dispersion" and blah, blah, blah, you obviously fail to see that I'm not talking about volatility in general. This is boring, and it is boring not because it is boring on its own but because I'm talking about what makes Bitcoin volatility so special and particular. You see, it's a difference that makes the difference, and I'm talking specifically about the underlying causes that create this difference. Anyway, you talk about big money but where is that money exactly? What makes you think that it still sits in the orderbooks? We've seen the price surge massively recently, so it would be legit and reasonable to say that all this new money was spent on buying bitcoins, but do you have any evidence that it is still in the market and not gone elsewhere?

[TheQuin]

You may think of it as just being a side note

I think of it more as getting sidetracked.

In respect to volatility being "a statistical measure of dispersion" and blah, blah, blah,

The blah blah blah is the whole crux of the debate.

you obviously fail to see that I'm not talking about volatility in general.

This is the problem, you fail to see that you are.

but because I'm talking about what makes Bitcoin volatility so specific and particular. You see, it's a difference that makes the difference, and I'm talking specifically about the underlying causes that create this difference.

This is why we disagree. Bitcoin isn't special in the way it is affected by volatility. It follows the same principles as I outlined. (the blah blah blah)

So, the question boils down to what makes the value change. The value is the derived from the sum of what all market participants think it is. That is driven mainly by fundamentals and human emotions. Bitcoin is a young and uncertain market and is therefore going to be susceptible to much larger swings in value as new information is discovered and interpreted frequently. There is no correlation between higher prices and higher volatility.

That is as relevant to Bitcoin as any other market. The limited supply makes it naturally deflationary but has absolutely no impact on volatility. This can easily be seen by looking at what happened 2015 & 2016 when there was very little change in value as there were few fundamental reasons. Supply dynamics were not different at all in that time.

Anyway, you talk about big money but where is that money exactly?

I talk about it because that was the premise of your original argument, remember?

In fact, the price growth which is inevitable with more money being poured into the system will cause even higher price fluctuations

This next bit we can agree on.

This is boring, and it is boring not because it is boring on its own

That's because it is no fun trying to debate someone who doesn't engage in my argument, beyond trying to nitpick side issues.

[deisik]

You may think of it as just being a side note

I think of it more as getting sidetracked

That was just to demonstrate how wrong you are (conceptually)

Oh, wait, wasn't I supposed to be wasting your time? Regardless, volatility itself is only a consequence (the blah blah blah part), so there is no way it can be the crux of it (whatever that might be). In fact, it is pretty inconsequential and uninformative on its own if we are looking for the true causes of it. It is these causes that actually matter. That's why you mostly make noise when you talk about it. Well, do you agree that at higher prices there is less supply? If you do, this is not what we should expect according to the basic market laws, right? We should expect that at higher prices the supply of bitcoins should expand, but does it really?

[TheQuin]

@deisik

Debating usually involves responding to the other person's points.

This is why we disagree. Bitcoin isn't special in the way it is affected by volatility. It follows the same principles as I outlined. (the blah blah blah)

So, the question boils down to what makes the value change. The value is the derived from the sum of what all market participants think it is. That is driven mainly by fundamentals and human emotions. Bitcoin is a young and uncertain market and is therefore going to be susceptible to much larger swings in value as new information is discovered and interpreted frequently. There is no correlation between higher prices and higher volatility.

That is as relevant to Bitcoin as any other market. The limited supply makes it naturally deflationary but has absolutely no impact on volatility. This can easily be seen by looking at what happened 2015 & 2016 when there was very little change in value as there were few fundamental reasons. Supply dynamics were not different at all in that time.

If you can't do that I really don't see why I should carry on answering yours.

Being dismissive and rude of my perfectly valid points really doesn't win the argument. It just makes you look ignorant, arrogant, and unable to argue.

Perfect example

In fact, it is pretty inconsequential and uninformative on its own if we are looking for the true causes of it. It is these causes that actually matter. That's why you mostly make noise when you talk about it.

[deisik]

If you can't do that I really don't see why I should carry on answering yours.

Being dismissive and rude of my perfectly valid points really doesn't win the argument. It just makes you look ignorant, arrogant, and unable to argue.

Perfect example

In fact, it is pretty inconsequential and uninformative on its own if we are looking for the true causes of it. It is these causes that actually matter. That's why you mostly make noise when you talk about it.

Are you kidding me or what?

It was you who first claimed that I was wasting your time, wasn't it? So what is it if not you being "ignorant, arrogant, and unable to argue" in the first place? To put it differently, what did you expect in return? I guess you should be more self-critical in this regard. Anyway, as I said, you make irrelevant points. You voice some trivialities about volatility, but this is as just irrelevant. How else should I call that but uninformative noise?

@deisik

Debating usually involves responding to the other person's points.

This is why we disagree. Bitcoin isn't special in the way it is affected by volatility. It follows the same principles as I outlined. (the blah blah blah)

So, the question boils down to what makes the value change. The value is the derived from the sum of what all market participants think it is. That is driven mainly by fundamentals and human emotions. Bitcoin is a young and uncertain market and is therefore going to be susceptible to much larger swings in value as new information is discovered and interpreted frequently. There is no correlation between higher prices and higher volatility.

That is as relevant to Bitcoin as any other market. The limited supply makes it naturally deflationary but has absolutely no impact on volatility. This can easily be seen by looking at what happened 2015 & 2016 when there was very little change in value as there were few fundamental reasons. Supply dynamics were not different at all in that time.

So do you confirm that with higher prices there should be a higher supply of bitcoins to the market?

[TheQuin]

You voice some trivialities about volatility, but this is as just irrelevant. How else should I call that but uninformative noise?

Another example of ignorant arrogant and unable to answer.

It is relevant, as I have pointed out many times without response, as it was the basis of your opening argument that I am disagreeing with.

If you want to continue this debate you need respond to it.

[deisik]

You voice some trivialities about volatility, but this is as just irrelevant. How else should I call that but uninformative noise?

Another example of ignorant arrogant and unable to answer

Note that I ain't calling you any names

I don't say that you are wasting my time, I don't call you an ignorant, arrogant, and unable to argue look-alike, and whatever else you say in my regard or blame me with. Oh, sorry, I said you were flat-out wrong with your understanding of scarcity, but that's the way you are. And now you come and say that if I want to continue this debate I need to respond to your point. Nevertheless, which point exactly should I respond to? That volatility is whatever it is? What difference does it make if I'm primarily concerned with the causes of it and don't particularly care which definition of it you choose to use? Further, you make claims that there are dollars in the system but can you substantiate your claims apart from the fact that they were spent on bitcoins? How do you know that these dollars are still in the system? You don't know that and unless you provide evidence, your point is moot

[mayax]

this is about Bitfinex shit....

TheQuin and Quickseller are like their PR. They talk nonsenses with no common sense like any shill  


I am keep saying that Bitfinex is doesn't have any financial license and that they operate a criminal company and the TheQuin is responding that they don't need one.  

All the licensed exchangers are idiots and TheQuin & Bitfinex are the smart ones...

It's not strange to see this thing on forums because I saw hordes of shills defending BTC-e in the same way,  so....

[TheQuin]

I am keep saying that Bitfinex is doesn't have any financial license and that they operate a criminal company and the TheQuin is responding that they don't need one.  

All the licensed exchangers are idiots and TheQuin & Bitfinex are the smart ones...

No, I said they don't need those licenses because they either don't have a physical presence in that jurisdiction or in the case of BVI don't need one because they are not trading equities, commodities or forex.

Of course, you already know that because you were unwilling to answer the questions I left you about AvaTrade.

[mayax]

I am keep saying that Bitfinex is doesn't have any financial license and that they operate a criminal company and the TheQuin is responding that they don't need one.  

All the licensed exchangers are idiots and TheQuin & Bitfinex are the smart ones...

No, I said they don't need those licenses because they either don't have a physical presence in that jurisdiction or in the case of BVI don't need one because they are not trading equities, commodities or forex.

Of course, you already know that because you were unwilling to answer the questions I left you about AvaTrade.

Your knowledge about financial licenses are almost zero so I cannot debate with you anymore. It's alright if you are Bitfinex investor, shill or staff...

The facts remain : Bitfinex is a unlicensed company, their Tether is printing USDT out of thin air. They are a fraud and a scam.

All USD trading on Bitfinex is actually USDT. They used to offer real USD which is why they are listed on coinmarketcap as such, but they lost their bank. How is it possible to have such volumes without a bank account?

Bitfinex = Tether = criminal gang       Stay away of them ! 

[TheQuin]

Your knowledge about financial licenses are almost zero so I cannot debate with you anymore.

As I already explained to you but you seem incapable of understanding let me try again.

Bitfinex does not require a licence to trade cryptocurrencies in any country it does not have a physical presence. The US would be the only exception to this and that is why Bitfinex has stopped accepting customers located in the US.
In all the examples you came up with of other exchanges holding licences they are required to do so because they have offices located in those jurisdictions.

Under BVI law there is no requirement to hold a licence for a cryptocurrency exchange. In the example you gave of AvaTrade they are required to hold a licence because they trade equities, commodities and forex which is something Bitfinex does not do.

The facts remain : Bitfinex is a unlicensed company,

I have demonstrated this to be completely untrue.

their Tether is printing USDT out of thin air. They are a fraud and a scam.

We have been through this one as well and again there is no evidence to support this.

All USD trading on Bitfinex is actually USDT. They used to offer real USD which is why they are listed on coinmarketcap as such, but they lost their bank. How is it possible to have such volumes without a bank account?

They have new banking arrangements and are currently accepting deposits and withdrawals in both USD and EUR.

@deisik
I guess this the wrong thread for this argument anyway but you argued that "with more money being poured into the system will cause even higher price fluctuations"
I disagreed with that. "higher price fluctuations" is higher volatility so I stated what actually does cause higher volatility and you ignored it until I ask you many times to actually engage with my point then you just arrogantly dismiss it as not worthy of debate without giving any counter-argument. It is pointless to continue.

[Samarkand]

...

We have been through this one as well and again there is no evidence to support this.

...

There is a new, highly popular, thread on reddit where a guy has made some analysis about Tether using
the OMNI block explorer. If his discoveries are true - I unfortunately didn´t have the time
to dig into his claims deeper - things are looking pretty grim for Bitfinex.

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7ih0hd/guess_who_controls_over_half_a_billion_tethers/

Basically he found out that even the wallets with high Tether balances that allegedly belong
to the big altcoin exchanges Poloniex and Bittrex according to the official "Tether richlist" seem to be controlled by Bitfinex.

I concede that this is once again little actual proof and much conjecture and the author also states:

Due to the increasing attention of this post, I feel the need to re-state that there's always
the possibility that we're all severely misunderstanding what's going on here.
Which is actually my hope, as I've already stated. I want to emphasize that I am just some guy.
I get things wrong and I make mistakes. Knowing this, please don't take this post as the gospel truth.
I am not an authority. In such a case that we are indeed severely misunderstanding things,
I would also hope that Bitfinex/Tether could explain what all this is about, so we can all chillax.

Let´s hope that this is just again a misunderstanding, but at first glance something definitely looks suspicious.

Besides, I´m pretty sure that they currently only allow Euro deposits and still don´t offer USD deposits
to retail clients.

[TheQuin]

Besides, I´m pretty sure that they currently only allow Euro deposits and still don´t offer USD deposits
to retail clients.

They have re-enabled it on the withdrawals page, although I haven't actually tried it as I'm all in on BTC at the moment.

[mayax]

Bitfinex fails to perform promised audits. Instead, they have a shareholder tell everyone it’s all cool:

https://medium.com/@bitfinexed/bitfinex-fails-to-perform-promised-audits-instead-they-have-a-shareholder-tell-everyone-its-all-965ae7037b5d