The manipulator is back!!!

[zby]

That mountain of bids at $4.47 and $4.45 right now looks rather impressive.  Someone with a lot of cash doesn't want bitcoins to fall much further (than they already have).  They really put a floor underneath the falling market.  Will it hold?

Or maybe some early adopter is trying to sell off the rest of his stash?

If you sell into this wall and he was serious - it bounces and you are the sucker.

If you buy his last stash of bitcoins and he pulls that floor from under your feet - bitcoin crashes and you are the sucker.

Risky business.

[log0s]

... so no, unless the fundamentals change (bitcoin starts to be actually useful and used because of that as a currency) then the downward spiral will continue until such change or the final death of bitcoin.

That mountain of bids at $4.47 and $4.45 right now looks rather impressive.  Someone with a lot of cash doesn't want bitcoins to fall much further (than they already have).  They really put a floor underneath the falling market.  Will it hold?

Or maybe some early adopter is trying to sell off the rest of his stash?

If you sell into this wall and he was serious - it bounces and you are the sucker.

If you buy his last stash of bitcoins and he pulls that floor from under your feet - bitcoin crashes and you are the sucker.

Risky business.

+1 for both of you

[log0s]

If I had tens of thousands or more bitcoins right now, and a good amount of money from prior sells, and I saw prices drop to levels threatening mining profitability (and therefore possibly ending up in a namecoin-like situation) I'd setup some bid walls to prop prices up high enough to keep miners going while I try to sell the rest of my bitcoins at the highest price possible before prices crash.  There are more profitable places to put money than in some failing crypto-currency that won't recover until many many months if not years down the road, assuming it ever recovers at all, so they might as well extract as much as they can while they can.

[wobber]

Someone set up a huge buy wall. ~45,000 dollars. I think that will hold.

[ArsenShnurkov]

~45,000 dollars.

$45000 / ($4 / 1 BTC) = 11250 BTC
11250 BTC / (7200 BTC / 24 hours) = 37,5 hours
before going down

[wobber]

Manipulate yourself.

[the joint]

This 'manipulator' talk is hilarious.

There is no "manipulator"  unless manipulator = anyone who wants to make money.

Somehow I think that if I increased my current investment 100-fold that I, too, would be "The Manipulator."

Unless there's some guy in his basement wearing a cape with a huge "M" on the back of it.

[BadBear]

This 'manipulator' talk is hilarious.

There is no "manipulator"  unless manipulator = anyone who wants to make money.

Somehow I think that if I increased my current investment 100-fold that I, too, would be "The Manipulator."

Unless there's some guy in his basement wearing a cape with a huge "M" on the back of it.

The manipulator is a bad trader's excuse for failing at the market. 

[S3052]

+1 agree

[Edward50]

Anyone notice the manipulator pulled his 10K bitcoin wall back to 3.8. It is looking bad for bitcoin.

[grod]

No, it's only gets bad when his walls get sold into.  When he just moves them around that's a non-event.

[BitMagic]

That's the system.

Explain. I mean, an individual has to be making these large scale orders, considering how fast they rise and fall. Maybe it's an early adopter with a massive stockpile, maybe it's another exchange or Bitcoinica's hedging, but other than that, what explains 10k coins going up and going down instantaneously? This isn't piecemeal market behavior.

I refuse to jump on the bandwagon that it's some massive conspiracy crap, but "fake" walls of this size and frequency are perception manipulation, pure and simple, unless I'm missing something significant with the way the exchanges work. If this is the case, I'm really curious.

[the joint]

I used to laugh off the manipulator hypothesis as well but over time accepted that their is validity to the fact that someone with a lot of money to throw around manipulates the market for shits and giggles.  My personal opinion is that they are doing it to screw miners out of making a large profit to reduce competition in the big money region (north of 50k coins).

I laugh it off because the name completely neglects any rational psychology.

It's not manipulation, it's trading.  I put up and remove bid and sell walls all the time too.  The only difference between me and them is that they have way more capital than I do. 

[Crypt_Current]

That's the system.

Explain. I mean, an individual has to be making these large scale orders, considering how fast they rise and fall. Maybe it's an early adopter with a massive stockpile, maybe it's another exchange or Bitcoinica's hedging,

Or maybe it's captain fat-fingers putting an extra zero on figures

[Serge]

Don't let the manipulator to manipulate you!

[Edward50]

I used to laugh off the manipulator hypothesis as well but over time accepted that their is validity to the fact that someone with a lot of money to throw around manipulates the market for shits and giggles.  My personal opinion is that they are doing it to screw miners out of making a large profit to reduce competition in the big money region (north of 50k coins).

I laugh it off because the name completely neglects any rational psychology.

It's not manipulation, it's trading.  I put up and remove bid and sell walls all the time too.  The only difference between me and them is that they have way more capital than I do. 

It is trading if you want to hold some bitcoins and you buy them, or if you have some bitcoins and you sell them at the current market price. Or maybe even throw in a set price for your bitcoins.

It is manipulation when you put up bid walls (as the manipulator does) to try and make other people buy or sell bitcoins. This is manipulation because he is trying to show that there is lots of demand for bitcoins, when in reality he just removes these bitcoins as soon as the price starts dropping.

I am sure you get my idea. He is playing on the psychology of others.

[NamelessOne]

It is trading if you want to hold some bitcoins and you buy them, or if you have some bitcoins and you sell them at the current market price. Or maybe even throw in a set price for your bitcoins.

It is manipulation when you put up bid walls (as the manipulator does) to try and make other people buy or sell bitcoins. This is manipulation because he is trying to show that there is lots of demand for bitcoins, when in reality he just removes these bitcoins as soon as the price starts dropping.

I am sure you get my idea. He is playing on the psychology of others.
[/quote]


YES! Exactly. Some people on here give the good old 'this person just wants profit' argument to say it isn't manipulation. It is kind of a no brainer as obviously the person wants profit, and they are doing what they think will work to get that profit. Which includes these massive walls. This person doesn't need to be mustache twirling evil, or have a grand master plan, to be 'manipulating'. And just because people are seeing this and discussing doesn't really make them bad or good traders, simply people observing and discussing.

[BitMagic]

Or maybe it's captain fat-fingers putting an extra zero on figures

Some personal experience, Captain? (+1)

[the joint]

I used to laugh off the manipulator hypothesis as well but over time accepted that their is validity to the fact that someone with a lot of money to throw around manipulates the market for shits and giggles.  My personal opinion is that they are doing it to screw miners out of making a large profit to reduce competition in the big money region (north of 50k coins).

I laugh it off because the name completely neglects any rational psychology.

It's not manipulation, it's trading.  I put up and remove bid and sell walls all the time too.  The only difference between me and them is that they have way more capital than I do.  

It is trading if you want to hold some bitcoins and you buy them, or if you have some bitcoins and you sell them at the current market price. Or maybe even throw in a set price for your bitcoins.

It is manipulation when you put up bid walls (as the manipulator does) to try and make other people buy or sell bitcoins. This is manipulation because he is trying to show that there is lots of demand for bitcoins, when in reality he just removes these bitcoins as soon as the price starts dropping.

I am sure you get my idea. He is playing on the psychology of others.

EVERYONE plays on the psychology of others.  I put up buy and sell walls too.  I simply don't have enough capital so the influence of my orders doesn't have nearly as much psychological impact on the market.  

What I'm saying is that the only difference between the guy or group of guys who place large bid/sell orders and everyone else is that they have capital and their bids/sells are noticed.  If you argue frequency, I'll argue back.  I sometimes adjust my bid/sells 10 times in an hour depending on market volatility, but far less (if at all) when volatility is low.  This reflects the movements of large bid/sells on mt. gox -- they are more frequent when volatility is high.

It's also kind of moot to talk about wanting to make people buy or sell bitcoins -- it ends up back at the money differential.  When there is a panic buy or sell, people buy and sell.  Every buy in a panic buy can be seen by others on Mt. Gox Live and it adds to the event psychology.  The only reason it isn't as likely to make the market move is because the majority of people have less money.  

But then again, the sum of all people with less money than the "manipulators" could also said to be manipulating the manipulators!  That's what happens in panic buys and sells.  Everyone buys or sells because they 1) Want to get in on the action and 2) Want the market to move in a certain direction.  This then 'manipulates' what the 'manipulator' does.  And, the reverse is true for the 'manipulators,' too -- 1) They want to get in on the action and 2) Want to make the market move in a certain direction.  And in that order.

It seems manipulators are simply guys with loot.  

Next you know, the 'manipulator' will be statistically random and everyone will panic and cry, "He's so ruthless!  Nobody can figure out what he's doing!  It appears his actions look like everyone else's!  He's a genius!"

[Hotdog453]

In retrospect, the name "Manipulator" was probably a poor choice. Should have been more verbose, like "A guy like me except has more money in the game", but, in Edward's defense, that doesn't flow nearly as easily