[2023-02-02] There’s a wild theory that the price of Bitcoin is being propped up

[zasad@]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wild-theory-price-bitcoin-being-110000608.html?
"Back in 2017, John Griffin, a professor of finance at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, noticed something strange. Griffin follows a totally different beat from typical business school finance profs who explore, say, how business cycles influence commodity prices or Fed policy sways the term structure of interest rates. The 6-foot-2 former high school football star views himself as a crusader for good, a moral sleuth who, as he tells Fortune, “looks to expose financial evil, to shed light on the world and expose dark things in the markets.” After the Great Financial Crisis, Griffin became a devout Christian. He has since dedicated his distinguished career to righteous forensic digging that’s unearthed abuses ranging from insider trading to mortgage fraud to the doctoring of bond ratings during the financial crisis."

[Kryptowerk]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wild-theory-price-bitcoin-being-110000608.html?
"Back in 2017, John Griffin, a professor of finance at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, noticed something strange. Griffin follows a totally different beat from typical business school finance profs who explore, say, how business cycles influence commodity prices or Fed policy sways the term structure of interest rates. The 6-foot-2 former high school football star views himself as a crusader for good, a moral sleuth who, as he tells Fortune, “looks to expose financial evil, to shed light on the world and expose dark things in the markets.” After the Great Financial Crisis, Griffin became a devout Christian. He has since dedicated his distinguished career to righteous forensic digging that’s unearthed abuses ranging from insider trading to mortgage fraud to the doctoring of bond ratings during the financial crisis."

I have a wild theory: all markets are manipulated.
Bitcoin prices are blown up by stablecoins like tether and USDC, a few whale holders controlling massive amounts of BTC. However, "traditional" markets face similar problems.
This does not mean the current Bitcoin price is completely out of proportion - it correlates with energy/hardware-costs for mining and it's increasing rarity as well as mass-adaoption/recognition as a store of value with massive benefits in comparison with other assets such as gold.
What I am saying is, while there are for certain lots of shady things going on with some effect here and there on Bitcoin's price, the overall price development for Bitcoin is still suprisingly organic imho.

[bbc.reporter]

@Kryptowerk. Agreed. This wild theory is not really very shocking, I reckon. There are some evidences that Tether and Binance BUSD might have already been fractionalizing on certain times to pump the cryptospace. No one agrees when I say this, however, Tether and BUSD operating mostly outside of regulated jurisdictions, if they can be fractionalized, it will certainly be fractionalized. The comedy here is they are fractionalizing above a fractionalized fiat currency hehehehe.

[Kakmakr]

I do not know why he must do deep forensic digging to see that Bitcoin's price are manipulated, when we know ALL markets are being manipulated by rich people and large global companies.

In my country "Wheat" and "Corn" are stockpiled in huge Silos, to influence the market price.... so when the price are favorable, it goes to market to sell at a higher price.

The rest of the world... use insignificant events to find excuses to increase prices for the consumers to boost their profits... it is just how things work in a capitalist system. 

[cr1776]

Regarding this:
"they were fascinated to see that a little-known token that’s supposed to be backed one-for-one to the dollar was getting printed in large quantities. "

The token was tether.  Has anyone actually believed that these stable coins are truly backed one-for-one?  When tether came out, it seemed awfully scammy to me.  It is easy to claim it was backed by the dollar, but not have the reserves without any way to prove it at the time. To me, I'd rather have bitcoin for crypto and not mess with stable coins.

I'd ask, do you think the spike in the last 18 hours was because it was "propped up"?  I am sure there are attempts to manipulate it, but the question is how much is it truly manipulated?  How long could one keep up the manipulation?  What was the reason for the manipulation in the last 18 hours?  I don't know the answers, but the paper seems to say only some of the time.  As the market gets large, it gets more difficult to manipulate.  ETFs and the like would make the market even large and consequently more difficult to manipulate. 

[Pity Token]

Most people thing that crypto markets are being controlled by whales, that is why there is so much volatility. I guess they could prop up the market but now that we're looking at trillion dollar assets it is becoming increasingly difficult to manipulate. I recon it's to do with leverage traders and whales / exchanges looking to liquidate them every now and then