Exchanges are guilty of preventing Bitcoin mass adoption

[PaperWallet]

I strongly believe exchanges are playing a negative role in the space, mainly because of price manipulation. And if -like in any society- evil doers are not going to pay a heavy price, we all stand a lesser chance to succeed in our investment. There should not be a possibility for someone to short or long a crypto, sell or buy, unless he really holds it!
I watched this debate between Peter Schiff (Gold bug) and Anthony Pompliano (Bitcoin bug), a rare piece of what you call a high quality debate that you could barely watch these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wigz8z6Vm3U

In this debate, Peter Schiff said yes his company lists Bitcoin as a payment option but they don't accept it themselves, they have instead a payment provider called Bybit that pays them in dollars. Which makes Bitcoin of course more expensive to pay with since you now have a middle man.

And I think he's right in not accepting Bitcoin. Exchanges would pump the hell out of Bitcoin, dump all the bitcoins they could possibly have to buy gold and then let the market return to its normal place again.... This of course plays against Bitcoin mass adoption.

[Yey09]

Exchanges are giving mass adoption for the world. Its a pretty easy entry point for newbies and they are buying a lot of crypto ads in some countries to share information about crypto for the ordinary people

[Twinkledoe]

Exchanges are giving mass adoption for the world. Its a pretty easy entry point for newbies and they are buying a lot of crypto ads in some countries to share information about crypto for the ordinary people

I think the OP is seeing it differently. Exchanges are promoting crypto adoption as you said they open doors to newbies and of course to old timers as well. The more exchanges we have, the wider options that the community can go to. But only few of them are to be trusted as a lot of them will screw the users' funds.

[Coin_trader]

I partly agree on this because most of the crypto exchange even the famous and not are not regulated. They can do anything they want like manipulation or faking volumes because no ones watching that's why I partly agree. But whales on Bitcoins like Chinese and other Asians plays big role on manipulating the price. They are controlling the market price after they enter in a lower price. These guys have group like elite groups and they are doing a scheduled buy/sell on a certain coin and one of them is BTC.

[20kevin20]

I partly agree on this because most of the crypto exchange even the famous and not are not regulated. They can do anything they want like manipulation or faking volumes because no ones watching that's why I partly agree. But whales on Bitcoins like Chinese and other Asians plays big role on manipulating the price. They are controlling the market price after they enter in a lower price. These guys have group like elite groups and they are doing a scheduled buy/sell on a certain coin and one of them is BTC.

I don't think there is any way to prevent manipulation imo. Lots of markets are manipulated by the wealthy.. Bitcoin is/will be more or less as well.

No matter how free we are, there'll always be 1 guy who will want to compete and be ahead of you if they see an earning opportunity in it. As you have already probably seen, there are companies that have started to purchase massive amounts of BTC. Large investments come from large names, and they have more influence & control over the markets than we do. We'll never have the "market innocence" Bitcoin had a decade ago. That's been long gone since whales appeared.

[Lucius]

One can say whatever one wants (badly) about crypto exchanges, but the fact is that these companies are the entry point into the world of cryptocurrencies for most of those who own them today. On the other hand, it is undeniable that these companies are not regulated, as is the case with banks - but when the authorities want to intervene and regulate this business sector, most crypto users oppose it because it threatens their privacy and reduces Bitcoin decentralization.

When it comes to price manipulation, crypto exchanges certainly have a chance to pull certain moves, but does anyone expect to say Coinbase dump about 1 million BTC it has in its possession, buy gold for that money and then live long and happily without any repercussions? It is something that belongs to the conspiracy theory, but one that has a sci-fi sign, and is not realistically achievable in the real world.

[Bttzed03]

Let's say for example there are no exchanges, only P2P trades and I am from a country that nobody sells BTC for our local fiat. For me to purchase, I would have to buy USD from our local bank (and I'm telling you it's not easy because these are regulated. I might not be allowed.) then transfer that to the sellers account. Can you imagine the difficulty of that? How do you think mass adoption be achieved through that process? Exchanges have its cons buy it does provide convenience. Heck, there are probably more than 80% here who bought their first BTC thru exchanges.

[Lhaine]

Exchanges are giving mass adoption for the world. Its a pretty easy entry point for newbies and they are buying a lot of crypto ads in some countries to share information about crypto for the ordinary people

Exchnage is also one of the big reason why we have mass adoption of crypto currency. I can prove that with our local exchange this help people to make easy way to buy crypto currency  in the choice they wanted and no hassle for them to buy. I can't imagine how people are able to buy crypto here without risk if there is no exchange that will help them.

[kryptqnick]

I strongly believe exchanges are playing a negative role in the space, mainly because of price manipulation. And if -like in any society- evil doers are not going to pay a heavy price, we all stand a lesser chance to succeed in our investment. There should not be a possibility for someone to short or long a crypto, sell or buy, unless he really holds it!
I watched this debate between Peter Schiff (Gold bug) and Anthony Pompliano (Bitcoin bug), a rare piece of what you call a high quality debate that you could barely watch these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wigz8z6Vm3U

In this debate, Peter Schiff said yes his company lists Bitcoin as a payment option but they don't accept it themselves, they have instead a payment provider called Bybit that pays them in dollars. Which makes Bitcoin of course more expensive to pay with since you now have a middle man.

And I think he's right in not accepting Bitcoin. Exchanges would pump the hell out of Bitcoin, dump all the bitcoins they could possibly have to buy gold and then let the market return to its normal place again.... This of course plays against Bitcoin mass adoption.

I don't think exchanges should be blamed. Most people use them, and they can be pretty useful. They are a normal part of the ecosystem. What's preventing mass adoption, then? Well, I think one of these things is that Bitcoin is too new and different from other money, and people don't normally like changes unless the current situation is terrible. Another thing is the authorities and banks not being a fan of what threatens them and having tons of resources to harm it. Regulations, statements and actions by them can be undermining. Finally, I think Bitcoin has serious problems with adoption: it won't be able to handle all the transactions if it comes. So for now we should focus on making adoption hypothetically possible, at least.

[hatshepsut93]

This is just a conspiracy theory, you show zero proof that exchanges are manipulating the price, yet you state it as a proven fact and draw some conclusions from it. It's not even possible, because you'd need to have all major exchanges conspire together, which is extremely unlikely to happen. There's a simple explanation for Bitcoin's bubbles - they just happen because Bitcoin is still new, so there are waves of enthusiasm and subsequent corrections.

[Insanerman]

I strongly believe exchanges are playing a negative role in the space, mainly because of price manipulation.

Maybe you are pertaining to exchanges that are centralized or has a control with the market. Even companies that holds huge amount of bitcoin or any decentralized cryptocurrency cannot control the market nor manipulate its price. Well, honestly, they somehow can, but not a total pump nor a total dump especially if the crypto and exchange is decentralized. Better study the difference of those first before being settled on the false ideology of exchanges manipulating prices.

Fun fact: exchanges plays a huge role in crypto space. Do you think there would be a BTC nor it would have anyworth if there wouldn't be an exchanger that can swap BTC to USD or any currency?

[PaperWallet]

It is definitely not a conspiracy, and was proven in several academic papers. I am not here to fully explain the cryptocurrency subject from the beginning or give any proof, it's not my job. Those interested can check it out, and this is not the subject of this thread. People denying this is not good either.

But I agree on the other hand that we don't know how to do without exchanges. At some point you have to buy bitcoin and you need an exchange. But it's hard to enter the space without being manipulated. You should definitely take this into account when analysing the right time to get in.

[The Cryptovator]

I wouldn't agree with OP, exchange really isn't preventing bitcoin mass adoption. If there is no exchange then it would be quite complicated to deal with bitcoin IMO. I know exchange is responsible for the pump dump, we can say it's a shady business, but not prevention. Exchanges make it easier to spend your bitcoin, for example, already given by you. Price manipulation and preventing adoption shouldn't judge by the same criterion. But I have to admit, if exchange avoids such as shady manipulation then we might see more bitcoin adoption.

[TedMosby]

IMO, they are not preventing bitcoin mass adoption.
more adopter, more fish for them.
they help us to exchange bitcoin into fiat.
they help the community by spreading and promoting crypto to new users.
they educate us about crypto as well. for example binance academy.

the one who preventing bitcoin mass adoption is hodler.
who has a bunch of bitcoin and do nothing with it.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

This is just a conspiracy theory, you show zero proof that exchanges are manipulating the price...

What other proves do we need when just by barely observing the market it's very obvious some manipulation are ongoing. Talk about inside trading, if altcoins get traded by insiders with valuable information on some positive development on the project like new exchange listing, major news etc talk more of bitcoin that can be easily dumped or pumped by the whales which obviously exchanges are part of. Tether can be printed from thin air and used to buy the bottom occasionally probably pushing the price upwards. Exchanges like bitfinex is guilty of this.

Even companies that holds huge amount of bitcoin or any decentralized cryptocurrency cannot control the market nor manipulate its price.

Seems you're not actively observing the development reported to be ongoing in the market if that's all you have to say. The so called DeFi projects exposed the amount of manipulation ongoing in the industry as coins were constantly pumped and dumped yet they were decentralized. Sushi token as a perfect example ssw the founder (A whale of course) dump all his tokens on the market and it cost a total outrage in the market which is yet to recover upto this very moment of press.

[Bitcoinislife09]

I strongly believe exchanges are playing a negative role in the space, mainly because of price manipulation. And if -like in any society- evil doers are not going to pay a heavy price, we all stand a lesser chance to succeed in our investment. There should not be a possibility for someone to short or long a crypto, sell or buy, unless he really holds it!
I watched this debate between Peter Schiff (Gold bug) and Anthony Pompliano (Bitcoin bug), a rare piece of what you call a high quality debate that you could barely watch these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wigz8z6Vm3U

In this debate, Peter Schiff said yes his company lists Bitcoin as a payment option but they don't accept it themselves, they have instead a payment provider called Bybit that pays them in dollars. Which makes Bitcoin of course more expensive to pay with since you now have a middle man.

And I think he's right in not accepting Bitcoin. Exchanges would pump the hell out of Bitcoin, dump all the bitcoins they could possibly have to buy gold and then let the market return to its normal place again.... This of course plays against Bitcoin mass adoption.

It's the other way around bitcoin exchange is a big part of bitcoin adaptation as it helps a lot in converting and a lot of transactions in a lot of places in the world. It's not preventing bitcoin mass adaptation because it uses bitcoin and cryptocurrency. It helps people to trade in cryptocurrency or bitcoin. Using these exchanges allows you to trade and make a profit. I also don't think that exchanges manipulate the value of bitcoin or cryptocurrency because the price in the market depends on the community. With the supply and demand in the market, price manipulation is caused by whales that have a big supply of bitcoin. Continue to use bitcoin makes adaptation of bitcoin easier for a lot of people.

[DoublerHunter]

~snip~
And I think he's right in not accepting Bitcoin. Exchanges would pump the hell out of Bitcoin, dump all the bitcoins they could possibly have to buy gold and then let the market return to its normal place again.... This of course plays against Bitcoin mass adoption.

^ I don't think if that is the main reason, but I did not see that exchange manipulating the price. It could be a whale or big-time multi investors that can afford to play the market with their own money. If you mean that this is preventing the mass adoption of bitcoin, I don't think so. If you have been noticed the Defi system now has massive growth, you make wonder to them, the fact that these all crypto exchanges that probably a big help.

[DooMAD]

You can try to blame it on the middlemen, but it's their customers who are handing them all the power.  Given the choice between being responsible for your own keys or taking the convenient option and getting someone else to do it for them, some people opt for the lazy route.  Regular traders aren't in a position to rely on P2P/OTC trades because the transaction fees would be too costly and confirmation times would be slower than they're accustomed to, so they're effectively forced to leave funds on exchanges (until the technology for truly decentralised trading improves, anyway).  

It's not as black-and-white as merely labelling exchanges the "bad guy".  As with most things in Bitcoin, there's a little more nuance to it than that.

[2double0]

Companies fear of btc's volatility taking place any time and they ask their middlemen to sell/keep it and pay USD to them. This increases sales of btc as such companies won't be less in number and will continue this. They shouldn't be blamed when they just accept btc on paper but not in reality? Exchanges are bringing in more convenience here by working as a middlemen, so marking them as a 'stop' against the adoption part is not so clever.

[CarnagexD]

I strongly believe exchanges are playing a negative role in the space, mainly because of price manipulation. And if -like in any society- evil doers are not going to pay a heavy price, we all stand a lesser chance to succeed in our investment. There should not be a possibility for someone to short or long a crypto, sell or buy, unless he really holds it!
I watched this debate between Peter Schiff (Gold bug) and Anthony Pompliano (Bitcoin bug), a rare piece of what you call a high quality debate that you could barely watch these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wigz8z6Vm3U

In this debate, Peter Schiff said yes his company lists Bitcoin as a payment option but they don't accept it themselves, they have instead a payment provider called Bybit that pays them in dollars. Which makes Bitcoin of course more expensive to pay with since you now have a middle man.

And I think he's right in not accepting Bitcoin. Exchanges would pump the hell out of Bitcoin, dump all the bitcoins they could possibly have to buy gold and then let the market return to its normal place again.... This of course plays against Bitcoin mass adoption.

You're seeing it wrongly my friend, exchanges are really good at engaging/enticing people to invest in crypto, but it doesn't mean that the veterans cannot invest in it anymore. With it's immense price, people can definitely get pressured to use it as a payment method but honestly speaking, it's not a coin anymore but a trading asset, and it shohld only be intended to be used for the same manner, we have a few people here believing that bitcoin will beat fiat but with its current price and the current demand for fiat cash, it would be hard to implement such measure even if it would take a long time.