[2018-05-24] US opens investigation into Bitcoin price manipulation

[1jaffa1]

The US Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into alleged price manipulation of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, Bloomberg reports.
The probe targets illegal practices that can influence prices — such as spoofing, or flooding the market with fake orders with the purpose to trick other traders into buying or selling crypto currencies, sources told Bloomberg. The investigation is currently in the early stages of investigation.
For the investigation federal prosecutors are working with a financial regulator that oversees derivatives tied to Bitcoin, namely the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
According to authorities, virtual currencies can be subject to fraud for reasons that include skepticism that all exchanges are actively pursuing cheaters, lack of regulations similar to that governing stocks and other assets and sharp price swings.

More info - http://business-review.eu/news/us-opens-investigation-into-bitcoin-price-manipulation-170945

[1713455611]

1713455611

[Name: Claudio]

Now we can say some exchanges are really cheating or manipulating the Bitcoin for themselves, I am not saying all of them but since many exchange now a days we don't know how they determine the price every hours or minutes, this helps everyone on how to help with the Bitcoin price, since we want all for its increase so why don't we help.

[Theb]

What is there to find? Fake bids, hypers, and bashers existed since the creation of the stock exchange, only now where the world is on a global market made this a bigger and more volatile market. Now if they do find some anomaly where the exchange itself is creating fake bids that really don't exist then that it a different thing, it can really influence the market price without you knowing this is something I am afraid of that a lot of new exchanges are appearing and some of the big ones are not monitored properly by the authorities. This market manipulation is something that even whales cannot do.

[hatshepsut93]

Seems like regulation is already here, and despite the lack of specific laws for Bitcoin, all the general laws and regulations do apply to it in many countries. It's not exactly clear how it would affect the market, as some investors might become more confident when the government steps in, as they would feel somewhat protected, but on the other hand people might see it as Bitcoin becoming less free, with exchanges getting heavily regulated to the point when they will start resembling banks. But people should remember that the network and the protocol remain unaffected, and so far no one can stop transactions from happening, so Bitcoin is regulated only in some sense, but not fully.

[richardsNY]

Now if they do find some anomaly where the exchange itself is creating fake bids that really don't exist then that it a different thing

Exchanges haven't been shy of doing that in the past. It will likely occur less nowadays with regulators pushing forward, but I'm sure that there still is some interesting and shady activity happening on OKCoin and Huobi. It's quite strange how these exchanges have managed to recoup their dominance that easily. It's either them creating a whole load of fake volumes, or they have granted various parties free trading in return for volumes and liquidity. It's just impossible for them to grow that fast after how their operations have been suffering badly from the harsh Chinese regulations. If things look too good to be true, then they mostly are....

[squatter]

What is there to find? Fake bids, hypers, and bashers existed since the creation of the stock exchange, only now where the world is on a global market made this a bigger and more volatile market.

Sure, maybe it has always existed. But the CFTC also enforces against these practices pretty aggressively. They filed eight anti-spoofing enforcement actions against banks and individuals earlier this year.

Now if they do find some anomaly where the exchange itself is creating fake bids that really don't exist then that it a different thing

How is it so different? Whether it's the exchange or individual traders behind it, spoofing can manipulate the markets.

This market manipulation is something that even whales cannot do.

If exchanges aren't policing against spoofing, then I imagine that depends how big of a whale you are.

[dark1234]

What is there to find? Fake bids, hypers, and bashers existed since the creation of the stock exchange, only now where the world is on a global market made this a bigger and more volatile market.

Sure, maybe it has always existed. But the CFTC also enforces against these practices pretty aggressively. They filed eight anti-spoofing enforcement actions against banks and individuals earlier this year.

Now if they do find some anomaly where the exchange itself is creating fake bids that really don't exist then that it a different thing

How is it so different? Whether it's the exchange or individual traders behind it, spoofing can manipulate the markets.

This market manipulation is something that even whales cannot do.

If exchanges aren't policing against spoofing, then I imagine that depends how big of a whale you are.

and the popes will take the opportunity to take advantage of the already high price and I hope these whales will be caught easily if they do not get caught again and again the manipulation of bitcoin prices and every exchange should be cleaner than these whales

[flashbit]

"Some market participants have alleged that crypto manipulation is rampant. Last year, a blogger flagged the actions of “Spoofy,” a nickname for a trader or group of traders that have allegedly placed $1 million orders without executing them."

Something has to be done...

[Hamphser]

Now if they do find some anomaly where the exchange itself is creating fake bids that really don't exist then that it a different thing

Exchanges haven't been shy of doing that in the past. It will likely occur less nowadays with regulators pushing forward, but I'm sure that there still is some interesting and shady activity happening on OKCoin and Huobi. It's quite strange how these exchanges have managed to recoup their dominance that easily. It's either them creating a whole load of fake volumes, or they have granted various parties free trading in return for volumes and liquidity. It's just impossible for them to grow that fast after how their operations have been suffering badly from the harsh Chinese regulations. If things look too good to be true, then they mostly are....

Now regulators are pushing forward on such implementation then they would really lessen out their shady activities and im not quite surprised that some exchangers are doing shady stuff since the very beginning but we cant do anything about it but to deal with it since they do have the full control and sadly for traders is mainly affected. We can really make strong presumptions because basing on previous situation and would reallyt have question on mind where those volumes came from.

[SectorZero]

The US Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into alleged price manipulation of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, Bloomberg reports.
The probe targets illegal practices that can influence prices — such as spoofing, or flooding the market with fake orders with the purpose to trick other traders into buying or selling crypto currencies, sources told Bloomberg. The investigation is currently in the early stages of investigation.
For the investigation federal prosecutors are working with a financial regulator that oversees derivatives tied to Bitcoin, namely the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
According to authorities, virtual currencies can be subject to fraud for reasons that include skepticism that all exchanges are actively pursuing cheaters, lack of regulations similar to that governing stocks and other assets and sharp price swings.

More info - http://business-review.eu/news/us-opens-investigation-into-bitcoin-price-manipulation-170945

I see manipulations with the price through statements of officials and representatives of the states. This just very strongly influences the price. It is necessary to open criminal cases on manipulation in media first of all.

[BitHodler]

I see manipulations with the price through statements of officials and representatives of the states. This just very strongly influences the price. It is necessary to open criminal cases on manipulation in media first of all.

CNBC has been subject to loads of manipulation accusations recently, and I do largely agree with that. Another thing is that they seem to be in favor of BCH, which is getting more obvious with the day.

They know exactly what guests they have to invite in order to show that bias. Nearly all of these guests are in favor of everything aside from Bitcoin, but they see value in BCH, which is ridiculous.

BCH adds absolutely nothing to this market, where I would even like to call the most redundant Bitcoin fork ever. How can someone genuinely prefer BCH over Bitcoin? It clearly shows that there is an anti Bitcoin campaign going.

Ver dollars are doing their work.

[Slow death]

This made me very curious, so how does this work? they will investigate all the exchange of the world and if they find that the exchange X that is located for example in nigeria manipulate the price, they will arrest the owners of the exchange X that located in nigeria? because the USA do things as if they were the owners of the world , in fact they do not want to know about what the people and government of other countries want... as long as they say "yes" it will be "yes". I want to see how this will end

[bbc.reporter]

It is starting the same pattern as the events that occured in China. We thought all of it was FUD but it ended in exchanges moving out of that country. The American government might do the same in America, I reckon.

[flashbit]

We still have to avoid comparing China and America.
Especially since before that the Chinese government had manipulated the market several times in early 2017

[FrueGreads]

I really want to keep a close eye on how this develops. Lets face it, bitcoin is not regulated, exchanges are only now being forced to have licenses to operate, and even now they are probably not heavily investigated, so who knows if they are manipulating the price or not. Sometimes I think most of the order are made by bots, and I really can't understand how they sync their prices. For me, this is another reason for regulation to occur. I love bitcoin concept, but the so called free market still looks a bit shady to me.

[veleten]

it is all nice and dandy,but how are they planning to enforce it even if they prove the price has been manipulated?
I am sure the exchanges will be found responsible and there will be even more stringent regulations,KYC and the whole 9 yards
besides,bitcoins are in the grey area in many US states,so how is it going to be defined-you manipulated the price of something we do not know how to describe and have no laws regulating it?

[bbc.reporter]

We still have to avoid comparing China and America.
Especially since before that the Chinese government had manipulated the market several times in early 2017

The Chinese government did not manipulate the market by spreading FUD like many of us have thought. They were already pushing the cryptospace out of their country during those times in 2016 and 2017. Now it's out.

The same warning signs are happening once again in America I reckon.

[1Referee]

The Chinese government did not manipulate the market by spreading FUD like many of us have thought. They were already pushing the cryptospace out of their country during those times in 2016 and 2017. Now it's out.

The same warning signs are happening once again in America I reckon.

China severely manipulates the markets. I am more inclined to think that eventually, when they have all legal means to set up a powerful regulatory framework to keep crypto in check, they will open again. China's only incentive is to slow down crypto's growth to buy themselves time to come up with that regulatory framework.

The reason they upped their anti regulations is because of how ineffective the previous regulations were. Crypto kept growing and growing, and for that reason it forced them to go a few steps further. If they really wanted to ban crypto entirely, they would have done it back in the early days. Imagine how much growth we would have gone through if China was still legally allowed to buy in.

Now it's out.

Legally it's out, for the time being, but the local crypto economies there are thriving hard. You can't stop people dealing with crypto locally.

[Carlton Banks]

Now if they do find some anomaly where the exchange itself is creating fake bids that really don't exist then that it a different thing

Exchanges haven't been shy of doing that in the past. It will likely occur less nowadays with regulators pushing forward, but I'm sure that there still is some interesting and shady activity happening on OKCoin and Huobi. It's quite strange how these exchanges have managed to recoup their dominance that easily. It's either them creating a whole load of fake volumes, or they have granted various parties free trading in return for volumes and liquidity. It's just impossible for them to grow that fast after how their operations have been suffering badly from the harsh Chinese regulations. If things look too good to be true, then they mostly are....

The Chinese government did not manipulate the market by spreading FUD like many of us have thought. They were already pushing the cryptospace out of their country during those times in 2016 and 2017. Now it's out.

The same warning signs are happening once again in America I reckon.

China severely manipulates the markets. I am more inclined to think that eventually, when they have all legal means to set up a powerful regulatory framework to keep crypto in check, they will open again. China's only incentive is to slow down crypto's growth to buy themselves time to come up with that regulatory framework.

The reason they upped their anti regulations is because of how ineffective the previous regulations were. Crypto kept growing and growing, and for that reason it forced them to go a few steps further. If they really wanted to ban crypto entirely, they would have done it back in the early days. Imagine how much growth we would have gone through if China was still legally allowed to buy in.

What would you all say if China were to have a sudden change of mind, and reallow Chinese crypto exchanges "to fight the black market" Imagine if they did this just a few weeks (or even days) after a consensus market bottom?

I'm not saying it's definitely gonna happen, but I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if it did.

[richardsNY]

I'm not saying it's definitely gonna happen, but I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if it did.

The chances are high for it to happen. I strongly believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with OKCoin and Huobi, and it has been the case for a long time (years now). If China ever is going to only allow one or two exchanges to operate, just to stay well positioned in terms of control, then it will be the aforementioned ones for sure. If we look back at how everything has been going with these exchanges, then it's safe to say that the Chinese government was very (suspiciously) mild towards the two giants. In order to come back strong, these exchanges need to build on their brand and position in this market, and that's exactly what they are doing.