Why is Bitcoin so stable in price after a big drop?

[LoyceV]

I've noticed it for a very long time: Bitcoin often has a stable price for a long time, then suddenly drops hard or shoots up. It dropped a few times in the past week, and as usual, it's very stable for a while after the drop. Yesterday's drop is no exception:

(source)

What is causing this?
My guess is this is manipulation, and my next guess is someone is waiting for order books to be filled before placing another big sell (or buy) order which will cause the next price jump.

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[bobo012]

I guess the same as you. Somebody is enjoying right now. They do it because they can and it is easy to just shoot the price up or down.
We will be seeing a lot of it in the coming years

[talkbitcoin]

someone is waiting for order books to be filled before placing another big sell (or buy) order which will cause the next price jump.

^^ this.

right now the market is not at all healthy. it is empty of real traders and is only filled with the manipulators and the bots running short term strategy scripts to make 0.5%-1% profit.
this will go on unless we go below or over a major price that  can trigger come back of real traders. in my opinion these two prices are $5900 and $8000 respectively.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

Every investor willing to buy at 6k range already bought in february or april. Same as every investor willing to sell at 6k range. Now all investors/long term traders are waiting for braking triange up (over 8k) or down (lower than 5,5k). All we see now iside of triangle is manipulation on low volume. Its easy to stop price at one lvl. Make bots/daytraders set stoploss little under/above or start to trade on higher laverage to profit on 6350-6450 range. Then after 50$ pump another 250$ is added by triggering stoploses and closing overlaveraged position pushing price up/down giving extra profit for manipulator who did that.

[figmentofmyass]

I've noticed it for a very long time: Bitcoin often has a stable price for a long time, then suddenly drops hard or shoots up. It dropped a few times in the past week, and as usual, it's very stable for a while after the drop. Yesterday's drop is no exception

this is typical of all markets. they're called range contraction and range expansion periods.

the two days of sideways after the selloff is usually called a bearish consolidation or bear flag because the subsequent range expansion usually continues in the direction of the original trend.

My guess is this is manipulation, and my next guess is someone is waiting for order books to be filled before placing another big sell (or buy) order which will cause the next price jump.

why does everyone around here assume manipulation is happening? this kind of action can be completely organic IMO.

[stompix]

When Bitcoin is stable for a few days and not moving a cent up or down people are starting to poke it to "do something".
But when it is finally pissed off by all that poking and swings up and down everybody is: "What is happening ??"  

If I were to blame somebody for manipulation I wouldn't cut exchanges from the list, not because they want to acquire cheap coins or drive the value up but because in periods of calm prices trade dies down and so do fees and profit.
Just shake the price a bit with coins out of your own pocket and the avalanche of buy/sell/sell/buy/ would reward you twice or thrice.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Somebody or likely a group of people in collaboration working together to control (to some extent) the market. This, of course doesn’t work if trying to do it into a bull run.

I think it’s a lot easier to move the market when it’s stable, i.e. not much volatility.

Edit - There’s supposedly a secret ‘whale club’, believe in it or not, I’m not sure.

[cryptocrusher]

Your explanation makes the most sense to me. Manipulators need a full order book in order for it to be worthwhile for them. Aside from the little bits they're picking up and the movement they're behind there doesn't seem to be much in the way of volume in the market at this present moment.

[buwaytress]

Every investor willing to buy at 6k range already bought in february or april. Same as every investor willing to sell at 6k range. Now all investors/long term traders are waiting for braking triange up (over 8k) or down (lower than 5,5k). All we see now iside of triangle is manipulation on low volume. Its easy to stop price at one lvl. Make bots/daytraders set stoploss little under/above or start to trade on higher laverage to profit on 6350-6450 range. Then after 50$ pump another 250$ is added by triggering stoploses and closing overlaveraged position pushing price up/down giving extra profit for manipulator who did that.

That's right! Every big time holder who wanted to pad up their bags, and every tired seller would have already done so, though the last batch of stragglers probably waited until June. Almost every price action now is pure short-term speculation at volumes and order sizes too paltry to qualify as manipulation.

why does everyone around here assume manipulation is happening? this kind of action can be completely organic IMO.

My thoughts too. Nothing short of a complete infiltration across all exchanges, with 10% of supply also under control, would be effective at manipulation.

Bitcoin has always been volatile, and sideways trading is always a phase even for volatile assets. With order action comes fatigue and trading volumes since beginning of the year has been struggling, which makes these spikes easier to trigger too.

As illogical as it may seem, this is actually pretty normal to expect.

[LoyceV]

I stumbled upon a Dutch article that reminded me about this thread:

Bitcoin remarkably stable

Rumours about price manipulation and suppression have increased in the past months, because despite a large amount of positive news, the exchange rate has been remarkably stable. An increasing number of analysts seems to believe the exchange rate is kept steady by large parties who use this period to accumulate more Bitcoins.

As evidence for this theory, the article shows several Bitcoin addresses that recently have been accumulating large amounts of Bitcoins.

In the following graph, the image from the OP starts just before the large drop in September:

[Lucius]

With great certainty we can say that this is not just a coincidence, and that someone or something stands behind all these events. In other words, it is obviously manipulation with the sole purpose of greater coin accumulation, which will of course be sold at the moment of the new ATH.

BTC is almost always follow same path : accumulation/pump/correction and I think based on all what is presented that we are now in accumulation period. Price is fairly stable in last few months, but we've seen a few attempts which resulted with fall under 6000 $ for short time. In my opinion reason why price is so stabile is that most of weak hands emptied their bags, and real hodlers do not want to sell at this price.

For some BTC is only money factory, with one important difference - first want to make money on a daily / weekly basis, some others invest and wait for years. It is very likely that the paths of these two sides meet from time to time, perhaps in that moment comes to sudden falls or jumps in price.

[LoyceV]

With great certainty we can say that this is not just a coincidence, and that someone or something stands behind all these events. In other words, it is obviously manipulation with the sole purpose of greater coin accumulation, which will of course be sold at the moment of the new ATH.

I had another thought: one of the reasons the SEC didn't approve a Bitcoin ETF yet, was because of Bitcoin's volatility. What if "someone" is trying to reduce volatility until the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF?

In my opinion reason why price is so stabile is that most of weak hands emptied their bags, and real hodlers do not want to sell at this price.

That makes sense too. I'm not buying, I'm not selling.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

With great certainty we can say that this is not just a coincidence, and that someone or something stands behind all these events. In other words, it is obviously manipulation with the sole purpose of greater coin accumulation, which will of course be sold at the moment of the new ATH.

I had another thought: one of the reasons the SEC didn't approve a Bitcoin ETF yet, was because of Bitcoin's volatility. What if "someone" is trying to reduce volatility until the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF?

In my opinion reason why price is so stabile is that most of weak hands emptied their bags, and real hodlers do not want to sell at this price.

That makes sense too. I'm not buying, I'm not selling.

Same!

Makes no sense to sell until 6-12 months after the next halving. We all know what happens then (historically). We should see $50,000 per coin then imo.

If you can afford to HODL for 2-3 years then my advice is to do so. You’ll likely be rewarded for patience & solidarity/bravery.

[LeGaulois]

With great certainty we can say that this is not just a coincidence, and that someone or something stands behind all these events. In other words, it is obviously manipulation with the sole purpose of greater coin accumulation, which will of course be sold at the moment of the new ATH.

I had another thought: one of the reasons the SEC didn't approve a Bitcoin ETF yet, was because of Bitcoin's volatility. What if "someone" is trying to reduce volatility until the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF?

In my opinion reason why price is so stabile is that most of weak hands emptied their bags, and real hodlers do not want to sell at this price.

That makes sense too. I'm not buying, I'm not selling.

Then, if someone was able to stabilize the market like right now, why didn't he stabilize the market at $20k? If someone did, it would be someone with a large investment in Bitcoin and would have no real use to stabilize his capital at a loss. Taking the risk to lose millions in case the SEC is happy?

[LoyceV]

Then, if someone was able to stabilize the market like right now, why didn't he stabilize the market at $20k? If someone did, it would be someone with a large investment in Bitcoin and would have no real use to stabilize his capital at a loss. Taking the risk to lose millions in case the SEC is happy?

All valid points. I can't answer it though.

[vit05]

People stopped selling. What exists today are just traders filling in the Books and the coins that come in after being mined. But the volume, at various times, is very low, which opens up the possibility for short gains with Bots. But soon it is stabilized, with attempts of those who have suffered a momentary loss to make average price

The change will only occur with institutional money or with some high utilization that goes beyond speculation. Few want to use as currency since most believe that we are on a down and sell now would be a loss. Markets today are more liquid too. We have several arbitration tools that correct any distortion within minutes.

A year ago, in Brazil, we had no more than 8 exchanges. Today it is over 60. But none has a direct link with other financial instruments. I believe that this does not yet exist in the world. In the stock market, you have money in stocks but can quickly turn into another financial instrument. Most people will always feel insecure without those opens on cryptocurrencies. A little more legal and financial security will be needed to increase the real volume and break down traders who are using low volume to accumulate or to sell their Bitcoins in the best price.

[1Referee]

Then, if someone was able to stabilize the market like right now, why didn't he stabilize the market at $20k? If someone did, it would be someone with a large investment in Bitcoin and would have no real use to stabilize his capital at a loss. Taking the risk to lose millions in case the SEC is happy?

It's impossible to stabilize the price around $20,000 with how everyone with common sense sells at these levels. If a whale tried to stabilize the price around $20,000 he would only provide liquidity to those looking to cash out, which is the same as burning your money. No one with sense does that.

~$6000 and anything slightly above that is globally accepted to be the main support, at least for now, and people for that reason aren't willing to sell near these levels. What happens is that without whales actually providing much support to the price around current levels, it manages to organically maintain its position, which is why we keep coming back to sub $7000 levels.

Everything above $7000 means sell sell sell, everything around current levels means remain conservative and sit on your coins, or accumulate.

[figmentofmyass]

I had another thought: one of the reasons the SEC didn't approve a Bitcoin ETF yet, was because of Bitcoin's volatility. What if "someone" is trying to reduce volatility until the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF?

have you considered how difficult that would be? this isn't like the gold market, where one or two exchanges can dictate the price. they would have to tightly control prices on dozens of exchanges around the world. if any exchange got out of line, they would need to heavily buy or sell into it, for months. that entails huge amounts of coordination, capital, and exchange risk.

i think the most obvious answer is that neither bulls nor bears have the power to force price outside of this range.

[pooya87]

What if "someone" is trying to reduce volatility until the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF?

this theory could have been true only if this was the first time price is stable like this but it isn't!

pan left on the chart and you will see other cases of stability which are usually in a small period of time but we also have prolonged ones too.
- for instance back in June 2016 after the $777 bubble price crashed down to $465 and then from August till October (~3 months) price stayed stable at $600 +-$30 before continuing to rise.
- or my favorite the 2015 stability after the $1200 bubble where price stayed at $220 for most part of the year with some small rises that couldn't break the resistance so the price dropped back down to that bottom again.
- of the short lived stability after the $260 bubble back in April 2013

we say Past performance is no guarantee of future results but the patterns are looking strangely the same!

[LeGaulois]

Then, if someone was able to stabilize the market like right now, why didn't he stabilize the market at $20k? If someone did, it would be someone with a large investment in Bitcoin and would have no real use to stabilize his capital at a loss. Taking the risk to lose millions in case the SEC is happy?

It's impossible to stabilize the price around $20,000 with how everyone with common sense sells at these levels. If a whale tried to stabilize the price around $20,000 he would only provide liquidity to those looking to cash out, which is the same as burning your money. No one with sense does that.

~$6000 and anything slightly above that is globally accepted to be the main support, at least for now, and people for that reason aren't willing to sell near these levels. What happens is that without whales actually providing much support to the price around current levels, it manages to organically maintain its position, which is why we keep coming back to sub $7000 levels.

Everything above $7000 means sell sell sell, everything around current levels means remain conservative and sit on your coins, or accumulate.

But my question is still valid though. Why someone would risk his capital at loss "betting" on an approval from the SEC? We are talking about thousands of million dollars. I took $20,000 as an example because it was its ATH. But I could very well have considered $15, 000 or even $10,000. The market could very easily have been stabilized at these levels. (we are still considering someone with the resources to manipulate the market). After all, Bitcoin did not go from $1k (Early 2017) to $20k (End 2017)

@vit05
yeah, what you are suggesting is, we need more KYC and AML about cryptocurrencies?