BTC is being manipulated into stability. But why?

[MatTheCat]

This ever increasingly narrow price band is being manipulated into existence. I have watched the price action on the 1 minute charts for long enough, and witnessed the mountains grow up on the Bid/Ask walls without much movement ever occurring to be sure of that.

At first I was thinking that the price was being held up to allow large cash outs. But perhaps this enforced stability is in preparation for the DPR auctions or something else along the lines of attracting investors to an ultra risky and volatile asset; "See look, its safe! Pile in guys!"

P.S. If anyone wants to come on here and tell me that this is merely the hidden hand of the free market at work, proving that $800 is the new $120, then I would like to politely inform any such person in advance, that they are a idiot.

[pera]

[Ducky1]

"See look, its safe! Pile in guys!"

This. Also to reasure existing holders that they did not do anything stupid. The large holders want to get rid of the pump and dumping.

[rdmk]

Spot on.

[finder_keeper]

"See look, its safe! Pile in guys!"

This. Also to reasure existing holders that they did not do anything stupid. The large holders want to get rid of the pump and dumping.

Well tell them to get on with it already! I need to buy me some cheap coinz!

[Rygon]

"See look, its safe! Pile in guys!"

This. Also to reasure existing holders that they did not do anything stupid. The large holders want to get rid of the pump and dumping.

+1. I'm impressed with how the large holders have been able to stabilize the market several times now and still have plenty of powder left to do so in the future.

[CCHarris]

I really think you have a valid point, but after seeing the large amount of bots in BTC-E, over the last few weeks I think the predictability and repeatability of bot trade is keeping the market very stable.  The bots are trading at $10-15 increments all day, and it is over and over and over.  Makes it hard to really rally, and get some big momentum going up or down.  Just a thought, I think as trading continues you will eventually see more bots than humans in the trading markets..

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Regards,

CH 

[MatTheCat]

Another huge cash out (500 BTC) that drove market from $808 to $804 within a 1 minute period.

[threecats]

from china to wall street. that's what's going on deep in the fog.

[Tzupy]

Another huge cash out (500 BTC) that drove market from $808 to $804 within a 1 minute period.

That's not huge, but medium IMO. If a clear downtrend will become obvious, then we'll see huge cash-outs.
Bitcoin whales have to be sure of a large drop when they dump, so they can buy back much cheaper.

[finder_keeper]

I really think you have a valid point, but after seeing the large amount of bots in BTC-E, over the last few weeks I think the predictability and repeatability of bot trade is keeping the market very stable.  The bots are trading at $10-15 increments all day, and it is over and over and over.  Makes it hard to really rally, and get some big momentum going up or down.  Just a thought, I think as trading continues you will eventually see more bots than humans in the trading markets..

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Regards,

CH 

Well, the bots are trading with real money. The only way they can keep the prices within a tight range are if they are backed by huge amounts of buffer money on both the buy and sell sides. The market will get out of the range when one of the two sides is exhausted. For example say the buffer is BTC 1M / USD 1B in size. If the natural demand for btc exceeds 1M, the whale will no longer be able to keep the price down.

There may be second order effects on market sentiment that I'm not able to figure out, but bottom line, I'm sure the players concerned are powerful but only up to a limit. They can't keep this up for too long...

[fonzie]

Right now it seems that the purpose of this is cashing out at a stable and held up price. It´s not only walls on both sides,
every time the bid side gets filled on Stamp, somebody dumps a few houndred coins.

[finder_keeper]

Right now it seems that the purpose of this is cashing out at a stable and held up price. It´s not only walls on both sides,
every time the bid side gets filled on Stamp, somebody dumps a few houndred coins.

But how would this work? Say you were sitting on 100k BTC and wanted to cash out. You could soak up all bids as they came in, but what would you do with other incoming sells? If you undersell them, you drive the price down. If you try to keep the price high by buying back in, you dont get to cash out.

[fonzie]

Right now it seems that the purpose of this is cashing out at a stable and held up price. It´s not only walls on both sides,
every time the bid side gets filled on Stamp, somebody dumps a few houndred coins.

But how would this work? Say you were sitting on 100k BTC and wanted to cash out. You could soak up all bids as they came in, but what would you do with other incoming sells? If you undersell them, you drive the price down. If you try to keep the price high by buying back in, you dont get to cash out.

You keep the price high by building bid walls and buyin 50-100 Coins from your own asks to simulate a stable price with enough demand.

[pickaname]

Lmao take a step back, manipulation don't matter. Whales try to manipulate market->Market conforms to manipulation ->Whales conform to market.

To put it in simple terms.

Market Psychology + Manipulation = Manipulated Psychology
Manipulated Psychology + Manipulation = Manipulated Psychology.

To solve for Market Psychology, set both equations equal to each other.
Market Psychology + Manipulation = Manipulation Psychology  + Manipulation.
- Manipulation                                                                    -  Manipulation
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Market Psychology = Manipulation Psychology.


They are one in the same. Don't give me that troll shit. Regardless of how illogical it sounds, it makes complete sense and you know it. Welcome to life.

[DPoS]

I really think you have a valid point, but after seeing the large amount of bots in BTC-E, over the last few weeks I think the predictability and repeatability of bot trade is keeping the market very stable.  The bots are trading at $10-15 increments all day, and it is over and over and over.  Makes it hard to really rally, and get some big momentum going up or down.  Just a thought, I think as trading continues you will eventually see more bots than humans in the trading markets..

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Regards,

CH 

check out the chart from Jan 9th and you see it narrow down to a mid point

Jan9th is when btc-e gave a big discount for whales on tx fees.   so they were able to shake all the loose money out and now just sitting with themselves.

perhaps when everyone has the same rates again Feb 1st things will move a bit more freely... or not..  I am in the camp that Coinbase is running things anyway and want stable price for their merchant/user fee churn

[DPoS]

Well, the bots are trading with real money.

are they??  where are their fillings?  weekly reports? are they regulated at all?  3rd party auditor sign off?

perhaps bitstamp and coinbase are just playing with a stacked hand (big pockets) and btc-e may or may not be fudging...  but gox and the china exchanges are probably suspect more than anything

[finder_keeper]

Well, the bots are trading with real money.

are they??  where are their fillings?  weekly reports? are they regulated at all?  3rd party auditor sign off?

perhaps bitstamp and coinbase are just playing with a stacked hand (big pockets) and btc-e may or may not be fudging...  but gox and the china exchanges are probably suspect more than anything

The only proof is that real people's buy and sell orders are being filled. You can't do that with imaginary bitcoins or dollars.

Of course I haven't actually withdrawn funds from stamp lately. Hmm...

[sgbett]

Back in 2011 "the manipulator" threads were far better.

[CHabba]

I'm thinking there's a cabal of benevolent bitcoin zillionnaires behind this. One of the criticisms of bitcoin has been its extreme volatility. This can intimidate individual buyers, and more importantly businesses. So what does the Satoshi Nakamoto troika do? It starts putting up buy AND sell walls to keep the price at this level for as long as possible. This builds up confidence, gets more adoption, and basically sets the snowball rolling...
[/quote]

I think this is spot on. Bitcoin whales aren't wallstreet whales, from what I understand they haven't cashed out, despite being worth hundreds of millions, and the initial paper released by Satoshi reads to me more like a technical manifesto.

All this trading and speculation, although fun, really does hurt Bitcoin as a payment system. The number one objection (after the illicit market dropping out) by consumers and vendors is the volatility. I might be mistaken, but price right now is controlled by the exchanges. The exchanges are easily manipulated by smaller users and by natural market forces.  Not to mention there are so many posts suspecting the exchanges themselves being deceitful.

Until we have a few solid exchanges we have complete trust in, which have 50-100k coins on both sides where we can reliably withdraw our fiat. I think this is a great move and will only help Bitcoin.

Being a miner, I want to see stable growth in the market. And anyone who things that someone with 100k coins, when total buy/sell options total 15k on either side is lying to themselves lol...