who actually moves the price of bitcoin?

[jiamijiang]

Most bitcoin prices are tied to an average or a collection of what the top exchanges publish as the current bitcoin price. But who's actually moving their prices? From my understanding, retail users don't have the power to move prices in the short term. Whales supposedly are the ones who can make the price suddenly jump or drop...but they trade on OTC desks right? not on retail exchanges....so how are these Whale movements being reflected on retail exchanges to determine what the current bitcoin price is? Or are there actually some whales who use the exchanges to trade on?

[passwordnow]

Whales, institutions, normal buyers. With the combined purchasing power of the normal buyers just like you and me, it creates a demand that affects the price to increase.
In simple explanation, that's what happens when the price goes up. The demand is high. And another one is when there are millions of newly printed Tether. 

[leonix007]

Whales, institutions, normal buyers. With the combined purchasing power of the normal buyers just like you and me, it creates a demand that affects the price to increase.
In simple explanation, that's what happens when the price goes up. The demand is high. And another one is when there are millions of newly printed Tether. 

When BTC goes on these price range like today, it is now very noticeable affecting emotions or attracting other investors and individuals, thus may trigger more demands.

BTC price is bound to go higher, as the supply is not constant and becoming more slimmer in the long run (Halving)

[Insanerman]

Most bitcoin prices are tied to an average or a collection of what the top exchanges publish as the current bitcoin price. But who's actually moving their prices? From my understanding, retail users don't have the power to move prices in the short term. Whales supposedly are the ones who can make the price suddenly jump or drop...but they trade on OTC desks right? not on retail exchanges....so how are these Whale movements being reflected on retail exchanges to determine what the current bitcoin price is? Or are there actually some whales who use the exchanges to trade on?

Demand dude.. it's always has been the demand. Even the high companies that adopts and uses Bitcoin wouldn't give such pump impact if the demand would be lesser. Trading tends to depends on how much the liquidity is and what would be the demand. Once they are both huge, expect the market either going sideways or up above. Hence, it's not really "who" that moves the price, its "who are".

Meanwhile, whales do also have a huge effect in the price, but it will be much effective when it would be combined with proper marketing and social media articles to hype up the people, making the demand go more and more.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Most bitcoin prices are tied to an average or a collection of what the top exchanges publish as the current bitcoin price. But who's actually moving their prices? From my understanding, retail users don't have the power to move prices in the short term. Whales supposedly are the ones who can make the price suddenly jump or drop...but they trade on OTC desks right? not on retail exchanges....so how are these Whale movements being reflected on retail exchanges to determine what the current bitcoin price is? Or are there actually some whales who use the exchanges to trade on?

Those who move the market are mostly the whales, since they are the ones who plan the movements of months ago, also normal traders, who do not have much money, usually move the market when it is full of emotions, it is usually when things happen worldwide, some fundamentals are decisive to see how the price of bitcoin rises or falls according to the type of event.

[Mpamaegbu]

Succinctly put, it's demand that moves the price of Bitcoin; whether from whales or institutions. Once there's enough demand the price goes up and then traders begin to get on the bandwagon of FOMO to chase price further high. They think it's a complete mop up and wouldn't want to miss a piece of the cake. You know, that's why a lot of traders and small investors will buy in at ATH without knowing it. I rather buy Bitcoin once I see a huge buy wall than when there are several buy orders.

[passwordnow]

Whales, institutions, normal buyers. With the combined purchasing power of the normal buyers just like you and me, it creates a demand that affects the price to increase.
In simple explanation, that's what happens when the price goes up. The demand is high. And another one is when there are millions of newly printed Tether. 

When BTC goes on these price range like today, it is now very noticeable affecting emotions or attracting other investors and individuals, thus may trigger more demands.

BTC price is bound to go higher, as the supply is not constant and becoming more slimmer in the long run (Halving)

I second that it's bound for higher price but it will always have the stop over before that happens. The cause of the pump isn't by the FOMO, there's more to it once the emotion becomes extreme that certain FOMO is happening.
As of the moment, I don't see that we're on that level but soon it will really trigger a better price.

[kramchers]

Bitcoin price value in the market goes up because of the whale investors, they are the manipulators. These whales always win in trading here in cryptocurrency, its the reality things happened that We cannot deny, then for the ordinary traders like me I can't be like as long as I don't have a lot of money. So, the more they control it or buy a lot of Bitcoin the demand will increase more for sure.

[Botnake]

When there is a sudden movement of abnormal movement, I believe it's the whales are moving it, or safe to say they started it, and when people got into FOMO, then it's from the typical investors who are helping to move it.

Actually not only on the pump, but also in the dump as well as whales could manipulate the price by dumping their bitcoin too so it would result to a panic in the market, they are still doing it at the right timing though, so it will attract action from people.

[cryptoaddictchie]

You cant definitely rely on whales alone. As far as the market goes bullish all players are included in the loop like retailers, small investors, instituions, and most traders. Even celebrities and known personality are in this too. Famous figurr like Arya Stark also tweeted on this, could also gain momentum on some of her followers to dig in on bitcoin and some might fomo. Movement on price has a lot of factor but the greatest one is mostly on news, hype and trend about it.

[Wexnident]

Whales alone don't move the market. I'm pretty sure that whales are the most seen investor is because they move big amounts, but that's it. If you were to count the thousands of investors, then they could easily surpass the amount of whatever a whale invest at one time. As for who moves the market, simply saying it's the demand. The more the market demands something, the higher its price goes. A very simple example here would be something like an Auction. The higher the demand for a product, the more would want to buy it, the higher the price would go right? Same idea as that.

As for how prices are regulated, I think exchanges themselves pay attention whenever a huge price spike appears, iirc just like in the crash back in March, some exchanges didn't allow trades to go through due to the massive crash that happened.

[adzino]

Most bitcoin prices are tied to an average or a collection of what the top exchanges publish as the current bitcoin price. But who's actually moving their prices? From my understanding, retail users don't have the power to move prices in the short term. Whales supposedly are the ones who can make the price suddenly jump or drop...but they trade on OTC desks right? not on retail exchanges....so how are these Whale movements being reflected on retail exchanges to determine what the current bitcoin price is? Or are there actually some whales who use the exchanges to trade on?

Doesn't matter if a whale trades in OTC desks or exchanges, when they sell, they increase the supply of available bitcoin in the market eventually. The price is then affected by this demand and supply law. 
By the way, an average "retail" user don't have the power to move the prices, but when every average "users" do the same thing, they can cause the price to rise or fall. We usually see them when a whale slightly dumps his coins, other average users out of fear starts to dump their coins too and hence the price drops even further.

[slapper]

Everyone is a piece of the big picture. You, me, a member of bitcointalk, an institutional investor, or a whale all have the power to change the faith of bitcoin. The market cap of bitcoin is very large now. Therefore, it is hard for an individual to manipulate its price. A whale can sell hundreds of bitcoins in an hour, but then, hundred of retail buyers willing to jump in and collect those coins.

And for your knowledge, it is called the supply-demand theory, one of the most famous theory for anyone who wants to join the financial world.

[xSkylarx]

Whales and big institutions plays a big role in this recent bullish rally. FOMO buyers affects the price too but I think most of them already learned their lesson 4yrs ago.
If you look at the 4yr chart, you'll noticed that history just repeats itself. The big question is how far will we go now after we break the ATH.

[xanto]

I see it as an endless circle: FOMO leads to demand -> demand leads to increase in price - > increase in price leads to FOMO -> FOMO leads to demand...
I'm just not sure how to fit those periods of pullback in...

[Hasmizara]

In fact, many people do not know the price of Bitcoin price increases depending on the bitcoin market. But when the whales are influential in the market and the demand goes down a lot as the price goes down then the price of Bitcoin goes down. But if the demand is high whales cannot survive in the market for long. Bitcoin investment is now high, including demand barks which is why whales are unable to determine their value on Bitcoin. Even if the price goes down the chances of losing are much lower waiting increases the price.

[D ltr]

Basically market movements are not due to whales, but because of market sentiment that wants market trends to move like that,
The whale actually only supports the price to move in accordance with the current market sentiment, and usually market sentiment is formed due to news and also trading analysis signals.

[DarkDays]

The better question to ask is what moves the price of BTC?

The response is simple: supply and demand. And the players in the filed such as whales, institutions, investors etc are contributing to tipping the market of demand and supply, and what seems to be happening now is that demand is much higher. This could be to these players speculating that BTC will go up in value. This in turn creates a positive loop whereby more and more people now become interested in buying for fear of not losing out, reinforcing the cycle.

[XZERO1]

I'd say it's mostly institutions and retailers money flowing into crypto market this time and that's why we see such a big spike in the price of Bitcoin, also don't ever forget the impact that this pandemic had in everyone's thought about how should they keep their money and whether it's worth the risk to be all in their national currencies and they are now worried about that.

To keep it short people now are thinking about alternatives to their national currencies to keep their money on that will not be affected by pandemic or other global or regional problems, Gold is another example that had a huge increase in demand lately because of the same reason, crypto is even better considering you can spend it and buy stuff with it online without even having to leave your house during pandemic so no wonder that bitcoin increased in value at all.

[MWesterweele]

The better question to ask is what moves the price of BTC?

The response is simple: supply and demand. And the players in the filed such as whales, institutions, investors etc are contributing to tipping the market of demand and supply, and what seems to be happening now is that demand is much higher. This could be to these players speculating that BTC will go up in value. This in turn creates a positive loop whereby more and more people now become interested in buying for fear of not losing out, reinforcing the cycle.

No one can actually made a big impact or movement in bitcoin price. No certain person can made it but only the demand and supply of the bitcoin could make it moves. Thats when whales, investors and traders can made a supply and demand varies there is where the bitcoin prices start to varies to. What i mean no certain person or group of whales can made a big impact but it is we the member of the community of crypto made it moves.