Bitcoin price manipulation patterns

[Canis Majoris]

These are my observations so take them with a grain of salt, but I've seen the patterns described below at two markets which are not connected, so there may be some truth in what I think. These are crypto and currency markets, specifically. What I noticed can be summed up as follows.

If you are a manipulator, you are not interested in crushing the price at one stroke. You would rather be interested in a steady decline. First of all, it gives traders time to react and place their orders to buy at what they think low price, that is build support at still relatively high price levels. Second, when you eventually crush this support, you can press prices a little further since there will be less support at lower prices. And third, letting people buy at higher prices will likely make them panic sell at lower prices later, so all-in-all you may achieve better results this way than if you chose to bring the market down in one sweeping blow and then had to face plenty of resistance at lower levels when a lot of support builds up there. The same approach should work perfectly if you are a big whale and want to cash out. It doesn't make sense to dump all your coins at once because that would scare the hell out of everybody and you won't get decent price on your coins.

The bottom line is that if you see prices decline in a steady, intimidating manner with no major rebounds as it happens these days, it is likely someone trying to artificially bring the prices down to cause a panic selloff. Another option is a shrewd whale closing his massive Bitcoin position.

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[davis196]

There`s no single manipulator,who is rich and powerfull enough to push the prices down.
There should be a group of big crypto whales and they sell together,forcing the price to go down.When the prices go down,all the small traders start to follow the trend,and eventually the market is manipulated.
Slow and steady decline means small panic.Fast and rapid price crash means big panic.Both scenarios can be created by manipulators.
What do you mean by "artificially bring the prices down to cause panic selling"?

[Samarkand]

There`s no single manipulator,who is rich and powerfull enough to push the prices down.
...

There are several big holders (e.g. the Winklevoss twins) who own a 5-digit or
even a 6-digit amount of BTC. They could completely wipe out the market with
a few huge market sells. Even 5000-1000 BTC would be enough to wipe
out the order book on most exchanges.

You seriously underestimate the amount of coins that some BTC whales actually
own.

[Canis Majoris]

There`s no single manipulator,who is rich and powerfull enough to push the prices down.
There should be a group of big crypto whales and they sell together,forcing the price to go down.When the prices go down,all the small traders start to follow the trend,and eventually the market is manipulated.
Slow and steady decline means small panic.Fast and rapid price crash means big panic.Both scenarios can be created by manipulators.
What do you mean by "artificially bring the prices down to cause panic selling"?

I wouldn't call this decline slow, slow is over weeks but not like today and yesterday. If it wasn't a single manipulator or big whale cashing out, why are the prices going down in this manner? It looks like someone intentionally and deliberately keeps the rate constant to bring it to a point when people think it's over and freak out mindlessly selling their coins. That's what I mean by artificially bringing the prices down to instigate an avalanche-like panic selling. When the prices start crashing on their own.

[Bonsaiav]

There`s no single manipulator,who is rich and powerfull enough to push the prices down.
There should be a group of big crypto whales and they sell together,forcing the price to go down.When the prices go down,all the small traders start to follow the trend,and eventually the market is manipulated.
Slow and steady decline means small panic.Fast and rapid price crash means big panic.Both scenarios can be created by manipulators.
What do you mean by "artificially bring the prices down to cause panic selling"?

Of course, releasing a one stroke only carries 1 decrease 'which is not meaningfull', and the impact of a decline that occurs just a few moments.

These are my observations so take them with a grain of salt, but I've seen the patterns described below at two markets which are not connected, so there may be some truth in what I think. These are crypto and currency markets, specifically. What I noticed can be summed up as follows.

If you are a manipulator, you are not interested in crushing the price at one stroke. You would rather be interested in a steady decline. First of all, it gives traders time to react and place their orders to buy at what they think low price, that is build support at still relatively high price levels. Second, when you eventually crush this support, you can press prices a little further since there will be less support at lower prices. And third, letting people buy at higher prices will likely make them panic sell at lower prices later, so all-in-all you may achieve better results this way than if you chose to bring the market down in one sweeping blow and then had to face plenty of resistance at lower levels when a lot of support builds up there. The same approach should work perfectly if you are a big whale and want to cash out. It doesn't make sense to dump all your coins at once because that would scare the hell out of everybody and you won't get decent price on your coins.

The bottom line is that if you see prices decline in a steady, intimidating manner with no major rebounds as it happens these days, it is likely someone trying to artificially bring the prices down to cause a panic selloff. Another option is a shrewd whale closing his massive Bitcoin position.

What you are saying is true, they are a group 'large whales' who have 40% btc, by the way they are united they are able to push the lower level btc price though.

[buwaytress]

As Bonsaiv points out, this single-stroke, one fell move, would never have the intended effect, if in fact the manipulation were to happen that way. It might result in a momentary flash crash, but then prices would restabilise pretty quickly. Single entities have been discussed of course, with some compelling evidence, especially by this guy from Hackernoon: hackernoon.com/meet-spoofy-how-a-single-entity-dominates-the-price-of-bitcoin-39c711d28eb4 and his other articles.

Spoofy may not be real, but the narrative is interesting and not entirely unscientific (otherwise ignoring the choice of language).

Think about this though, these would-be manipulators would surely not want to kill their golden goose. Even if they brought the price down, it would only be for them to re-enter into long positions. Why make a few billion today when you could be making hundreds of millions for many tomorrows?

[Canis Majoris]

As Bonsaiv points out, this single-stroke, one fell move, would never have the intended effect, if in fact the manipulation were to happen that way. It might result in a momentary flash crash, but then prices would restabilise pretty quickly. Single entities have been discussed of course, with some compelling evidence, especially by this guy from Hackernoon: hackernoon.com/meet-spoofy-how-a-single-entity-dominates-the-price-of-bitcoin-39c711d28eb4 and his other articles.

Spoofy may not be real, but the narrative is interesting and not entirely unscientific (otherwise ignoring the choice of language).

It wasn't not a single-stroke, one fell move. I watched the price go down for two days, and it didn't look like a flash crash by any means. This is the point which I want to emphasize once again. It looked like a deliberate attempt to move the prices down in a consistent and gradual, even frightening manner, allowing more traders to enter the Buy side of the orderbook and then relentlessly eating their orders. It was a very well thought-out scheme, not some frantic effort to close a position at any costs, which is what most flash crashes can be traced to. That's the main reason why I started this thread.

Think about this though, these would-be manipulators would surely not want to kill their golden goose. Even if they brought the price down, it would only be for them to re-enter into long positions. Why make a few billion today when you could be making hundreds of millions for many tomorrows?

I see your point but you may miss a few other factors that may be in operation here. For example, it is sort of common knowledge that when Bitcoin price falls, most altcoins fall even harder, and harder may be a serious underestimation here. So what if would-be manipulators are really trying to move their financial capital from Bitcoin to some other coin like Ethereum or Litecoin? I think in this case they wouldn't care if Bitcoin dies in the process as long as the coin of their choice survives. Also, given the general negative attitude toward Bitcoin recently revealed by the powers that be, it may in fact be worth earning a few billions today because there might not tomorrow at all. What do you think?

[buwaytress]

Think about this though, these would-be manipulators would surely not want to kill their golden goose. Even if they brought the price down, it would only be for them to re-enter into long positions. Why make a few billion today when you could be making hundreds of millions for many tomorrows?

I see your point but you may miss a few other factors that may be in operation here. For example, it is sort of common knowledge that when Bitcoin price falls, most altcoins fall even harder, and harder may be a serious underestimation here. So what if would-be manipulators are really trying to move their financial capital from Bitcoin to some other coin like Ethereum or Litecoin? I think in this case they wouldn't care if Bitcoin dies in the process as long as the coin of their choice survives. Also, given the general negative attitude toward Bitcoin recently revealed by the powers that be, it may in fact be worth earning a few billions today because there might not tomorrow at all. What do you think?

Not really common knowledge - there were actually times last year when altcoins rose as Bitcoin declined, usually in short spurts. To my understanding this can be rationally explained when people buy up alts with Bitcoin (BTC pairs are, after all, still the most common trading pair with most alts and the easiest way for people to buy alts without a fiat deposit). In other words, this is a form of shorting Bitcoin (selling it to buy alts). Of course, as January and early February has shown, the entire crypto market is pretty much reliant on Bitcoin's health in the long term.

And that knowledge - that if Bitcoin as the most recognised, accepted and legitimate cryptocurrency fails, so does the rest of crypto - should still be the prevailing common sense of whales who surely built their digital wealth from Bitcoin. There may certainly not be a tomorrow, but the whales would want that event to be as far forward into the future as possible. That's my conjecture.

[alyssa85]

There is no manipulator (though there was back in 2013, with the willy-bot).

The market cap of bitcoin is now just too large, which means there are too many actors and the money you need to crush all those actors would run to the billions.

I think people need to take a deep breath. The price this time last year was about $1000. Bitcoin is still above the support line from 2017 (draw a line through all the lows and you see a rising slope), and it's at teh price it was last November. The December price was not real, it was caused by a bunch of noobs fomo buying and the line went up vertically. When that happens, it always corrects to where it should have been - which is around the $7,500 to $9000 level.

[LeGaulois]

Don't you think it's possible to manipulate the price even if you own 0BTC Using mainstream media and to keep bashing Bitcoin to say how it's bad and help criminals and so on? And when you want to make the price wake up, you say "good news! Bitcoin is now accepted in this and that" or any positive news, you get my idea. A lot of media are controlled by the same holdings, of course, you need a lot of power but it's still not impossible when you have the resources.

“Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”
― Jim Morrison

[dothebeats]

If a whale decides to close his position, he'd do it instantly and wouldn't sell off in increasing increments as to what we have witnessed here. Honestly I think that the recent huge crash is intentionally aligned with the bad news reported by media regarding South Korea and India's stance against cryptocurrencies. Or it could have been a correction for bitcoin to reach its supposed "true value" before the FOMO kicked in on the last weeks of November. There are endless possibilities; a correction from $15k++ is a must and we all know that it couldn't hold for too long considering how fast it came in there.

[arpon11]

I agree with the point you have made but my most worry is people sell their coins because of the activities of the same whales.  If you look at what is happening you will find out that bitcoin, ethereum and most of the popular cryptocurrency were falling at the same rate and this is what I have seeing and notice that Some very big investors were closing their position in all the coins and since price is now down very soon they are going to start to buy again.

[imapessimist]

I think the whales could be quite cunning more like foxes than whales.  They will lure people in because the price will be creeping up so people invest their savings and then when everyone least expects it the whales will come along and take all the profits and more.  Like a fox in a hen house.  I think people should beware. 

[DashS]

There was a good article by Bitfinexed in Medium that pointed out how Bitfinex manipulate the price with fake buy\sell orders. Very good article and solid analysis, if you're interested you can google it easily...

[richardsNY]

There was a good article by Bitfinexed in Medium that pointed out how Bitfinex manipulate the price with fake buy\sell orders. Very good article and solid analysis, if you're interested you can google it easily...

Bitfinex is a shady exchange, so it wouldn't surprise me if they actually are manipulating the market as stated. One sure thing is that even in current times, certain entities are playing around with massive buy orders that they pull back very quickly. The largest order I have seen this week was a very short lasting buy wall of nearly 2000 BTC at +$10k levels. Not directly saying that it's Bitfinex itself, but one has to be very stupid to trust Bitfinex what that much value. It's the largest exchange based on their USD, or better said USDT volume, but they don't allow any US registrants.... Good thing however is that the market is more looking at GDAX when it comes the direction, and not so much Bitfinex anymore.

[btcone111]

There`s no single manipulator,who is rich and powerfull enough to push the prices down.
There should be a group of big crypto whales and they sell together,forcing the price to go down.When the prices go down,all the small traders start to follow the trend,and eventually the market is manipulated.
Slow and steady decline means small panic.Fast and rapid price crash means big panic.Both scenarios can be created by manipulators.
What do you mean by "artificially bring the prices down to cause panic selling"?

This is a very good reply. short term trend is exacerbated by day traders trend following signals.

[Canis Majoris]

If a whale decides to close his position, he'd do it instantly and wouldn't sell off in increasing increments as to what we have witnessed here. Honestly I think that the recent huge crash is intentionally aligned with the bad news reported by media regarding South Korea and India's stance against cryptocurrencies. Or it could have been a correction for bitcoin to reach its supposed "true value" before the FOMO kicked in on the last weeks of November. There are endless possibilities; a correction from $15k++ is a must and we all know that it couldn't hold for too long considering how fast it came in there.

I'd be happy to hear the reasons why you think a whale would want to close his position instantly. If we are talking about a really big whale, then trying to close his position at once would just eat away all liquidity from the market. On the other hand, if he closes it slowly and gradually, he will be better off because traders won't be scared away by a sudden price crash. As I said in OP, many traders would start adding liquidity to the orderbooks, thinking of the price decline as a good buying opportunity.

Also, if it had been because of some negative news hitting the wires as some suggested here, the price would have moved chaotically. But it was a steady and persistent decline, which clearly shows that it was a deliberate and likely concerted effort.

[BrewMaster]

^^ we actually have a somewhat similar example for this. not exactly a whale closing position but a sudden drop in price. on 2017-4-15 bitcoin price was $1170 but it fell down to $0.06 on coinbase. there was a big freak out but the amount of buy orders which were placed was so big that it filled the orderbook right up to $1170 again.

[Canis Majoris]

It appears that whoever is bringing the price down definitely knows what he is doing. After the selling pressure got removed for some time, the price bounced back a little and more liquidity entered the market. And when people started to think it was over, the pressure resumed. And we are now almost $2000 below where we were just two days ago. It was a classic though minor bull trap. Is there any better way to strip people off their money?

[GraciousBanshee47]

There is no good news. Therefore there will be no driving force for the bulls. Any increase in price with low volume is definitely manipulation only.