BTC is being manipulated into stability. But why?

[aminorex]

One of the criticisms of Bitcoin is that the early adopters control too much of the wealth.

This is hardly a criticism of bitcoin.  It is more a criticism of the people who repeat it:  It shows that they are deluded by envy.  So deluded by venial envy that they are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.

[Anon136]

wallstreet coming in. they will pump after they take the position they want, not before.

[Bitcoin BEAR]

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Of course I haven't actually withdrawn funds from stamp lately.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

Withdrew 400$ from Bitstamp just yesterday, went smooth and took one day with a SEPA transfer.

I think people would like to know about $4,000 or $40,000 liquidity moves

I withdraw 4 figure amounts monthly and never have a problem

[MatTheCat]

Ever since the liquidity issues between Bitstamp and Bitfinex were worked out, volatility has plummeted.  If Mt.Gox finally took a little lead pill to cure its disease, >95% of the fiat/crypto market cap would be a liquid market, and most of the pathological catastrophes would be ended.   The swaps on BFX have done price discovery an amazing service.

Since when has this been possible?

(Routing Bitfinex leveraged positions with all its trading options through the much deeper Ask/Bid walls on Stamp)

[DieJohnny]

I have no doubt that massive selling could drive the price down, however, this isn't a stock, all holders that I know would buy on the way down non-stop until every penny they had was gone. So how much power do these manipulators actually have??

I can only envision a disaster scenario where satoshi, the FBI, and maybe a couple of others in the top 25 relinquished all of their coins over a 6 month period, causing the price to tumble past all possible support and sucking every saving dollar out of every person on this forum and the rest of the geek world. But then why would they do that unless they were intentionally trying to kill bitcoin.

[BittBurger]

I would like to politely inform any such person in advance, that they are a idiot.

an* idiot

[billyjoeallen]

The simple fact is that we are "manipulating" into stability because we who hold a substantial amount of BTC and are not momentum-chasing lemmings sell when the price rises too much or too fast and buy when it plunges or falls too fast or too much. We make more fiat that way. We pick up extra coins that way. This is not a conspiracy. This is smart investment management.