Bitcoin Market and Blackrock

[Becassine]

After witnessing the sort of flash crash on February 2nd and 3rd, I started getting interested in the phenomenon of volatility—volatility that could even be called manipulation. That’s when I came across this article. Enjoy your reading!

https://news.cryptos.com/2025/02/02/market/whistleblower-lawsuit-alleges-corruption-retaliation-and-bitcoin-manipulation-at-blackrock/

=> Former BlackRock executive Hamdan Azhar has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the world's largest asset manager, alleging corruption, conflicts of interest, retaliation, and a hidden agenda to control Bitcoin. Hired in February 2020 as Vice President and Head of Data Science for Global Marketing, Azhar claims to have uncovered fraudulent practices within the company, including awarding a $2 million contract to Rightpoint, a consulting firm where his supervisor's husband, Dr. Tiffany Perkins-Munn, held a senior position. After reporting these irregularities, Azhar allegedly faced retaliation, leading to his dismissal in May 2022. The lawsuit also highlights that BlackRock's Bitcoin strategy aims to manipulate and control the cryptocurrency, potentially threatening its decentralized nature.

[Chrysostomus]

"...potentially threatening its decentralized nature."

I need to disagree with that ending, since it is flawed. No amount of scandal, irregularities, or fraudulent practices done by people and their companies can threaten the decentralized nature of the BTC P2P Network. What greedy people do with Bitcoin does not define what BTC is at the digital core.

[Becassine]

"...potentially threatening its decentralized nature."

I need to disagree with that ending, since it is flawed. No amount of scandal, irregularities, or fraudulent practices done by people and their companies can threaten the decentralized nature of the BTC P2P Network. What greedy people do with Bitcoin does not define what BTC is at the digital core.

It's true, we could rather talk about autonomy, in the sense that the value of bitcoin would not grow autonomously (due to its increasing scarcity) because its price would be too manipulated.

[TheUltraElite]

You are confusing decentralization to be proportional to the ownership distribution of bitcoin.

Bitcoin being decentralized means that its supply is not under control of any specific body. It does not stop someone from buying bitcoin or selling it.

Now price of bitcoin depends on how much someone is buying or selling it at. Just because someone owns a large number of bitcoin they can try to sell it at higher price but everyone will not buy at that price.

Do not forget that the real price of 1BTC is always 1BTC and not a xUSD.

[shield132]

The lawsuit also highlights that BlackRock's Bitcoin strategy aims to manipulate and control the cryptocurrency, potentially threatening its decentralized nature.

Before 2024, Gary Gensler denied Bitcoin Spot ETF applications due to market manipulation concerns and he was right about that. Bitcoin is easily manipulated, BlackRock and other companies wanted Bitcoin Spot ETFs to manipulate the market and generate lots of revenue. It was not an accident when the SEC's decision was leaked on their Twitter page before the real approval. Gary Gensler also didn't want to approve Spot ETFs but to my mind, BlackRock and other big guys forced him to approve it.
The more Bitcoins companies like BlackRock own, the worse the decentralization will get. I was always advocating against holding but now I think that we should try our best and own as much Bitcoins as possible, these companies should not get their hands on them.

[Smartprofit]

Bitcoin decentralization has a threefold nature.

First, it is mining decentralization.

Second, it is development decentralization.

Third, it is coin ownership and storage decentralization.

BlackRock can potentially negatively affect all three types of decentralization. For example, it can buy up a large number of coins and store them centrally. This will violate the principle of coin ownership and storage decentralization. BlackRock can also bribe Bitcoin developers, for example by funding them (through a grant system). Theoretically, this can lead to changes being made to Bitcoin at the code level, changing its original essence. This is a very strong threat to the first cryptocurrency. BlackRock can also carry out activities to monopolize mining activities.

I will only be glad if none of this happens.

[mindrust]

The article doesn’t make any sense. Even if blackrock owns 5 million bitcoins, it still wouldn’t harm Bitcoin’s decentralization because these are unrelated issues. Owning/controlling the majority of the supply isn’t the same thing as controlling the majority of the hash power. If they were controlling the majority of the hash power, then I would be afraid but I don’t think that’s the case.

Let blackrock play with the prices. Bitcoin doesn’t care. The network doesn’t care. I don’t care too as long as my transactions don’t get censored.

[JeffBrad12]

I thought bitcoin's ETF was supposedly owned by the ETF buyers though? I mean their bitcoin mostly will be in custody, and to control the blockchain you need to have 51% of mining power which gonna be expensive as hell considering even right now nobody has succeeded in that attempt.

I think this is overblown news in my opinion, bitcoin is still doing fine, any sudden price change has always been about chasing those liquidation point for leveraged trades.

[slaman29]

I thought bitcoin's ETF was supposedly owned by the ETF buyers though? I mean their bitcoin mostly will be in custody, and to control the blockchain you need to have 51% of mining power which gonna be expensive as hell considering even right now nobody has succeeded in that attempt.

I guess you mean Bitcoin spot ETFs?

Buyers might be the ultimate owners yes, they own the rights, and yes the spot ETFs mean they are backed by actual BTC.

However, the buyers do not actually control the BTC, it is still in custody of Blackrock. And no amount of BTC in your custody gives you any mining power. That only happens with Proof of Stake like Ethereum.

[Oluwa-btc]

I thought bitcoin's ETF was supposedly owned by the ETF buyers though? I mean their bitcoin mostly will be in custody, and to control the blockchain you need to have 51% of mining power which gonna be expensive as hell considering even right now nobody has succeeded in that attempt.

I think this is overblown news in my opinion, bitcoin is still doing fine, any sudden price change has always been about chasing those liquidation point for leveraged trades.

That's exactly what I was thinking till I finally got to realize that Blackrock engagement with Bitcoin(crypto market)has exceeded the ETF and according to market capitalization,Blackrock reportedly owns and has a big deal amongst the biggest BTC mining companies.

Blackrock,the world's largest asset manager and consultant, they've made a significant move and shown interest in the crypto space of late and the it's been seen that the kind of move they make is manipulative and can affect the Bitcoin financial space.
To crown it all,a lot of Bitcoin users are unsatisfied and still doubts the impacts of Blackrock over Bitcoin's growth.

[BlackBoss_]

The lawsuit also highlights that BlackRock's Bitcoin strategy aims to manipulate and control the cryptocurrency, potentially threatening its decentralized nature.

Bitcoin is # than Cryptocurrencies and altcoins.
BlackRock can control altcoins, but they will never be able to control Bitcoin.

BlackRock is only one of market makers and they can disappear in future, but my belief is Bitcoin existence will be longer than Black Rock.

Don't worry about Black Rock, and think of their games like to make money, make them richer through Bitcoin Spot ETFs. They won't do stupid things that cause Bitcoin price drops to zero.

They can play games that result in volatility in the market but in the end, they need higher prices for Bitcoin to get profit. If you don't trade, can hold your bitcoin, you can follow BlackRock and get profit.

[CroverNo01]

That's exactly what I was thinking till I finally got to realize that Blackrock engagement with Bitcoin(crypto market)has exceeded the ETF and according to market capitalization,Blackrock reportedly owns and has a big deal amongst the biggest BTC mining companies.

Blackrock,the world's largest asset manager and consultant, they've made a significant move and shown interest in the crypto space of late and the it's been seen that the kind of move they make is manipulative and can affect the Bitcoin financial space.
To crown it all,a lot of Bitcoin users are unsatisfied and still doubts the impacts of Blackrock over Bitcoin's growth.

We should exhaustively look into the system because there's quite alot of things and features we should adhered to and acknowledge because the system have always been one of the broad path to associate ourselves with formidable sources. This minute we're happy about our findings and the next minute, we're in excruciating pain and this is no better form for us.

The bitcoin market is widely engaged with volatility, nobody work down that path in arrange set, rather teared down into pieces of losses and confident exits. Do you really wanna to experience such terrible thing? I bet most of us are just sticking around to accumulate profits, we don't want to get engaged in any problem of whatsoever. Growth is marginally means of making good thoughts for the Blackrock.

[mk4]

It's true, we could rather talk about autonomy, in the sense that the value of bitcoin would not grow autonomously (due to its increasing scarcity) because its price would be too manipulated.

For some reason, people always think that an entity attempting to manipulate an asset automatically means they have total control over it.

Guess what — even manipulation attempts can fail. Some firms are great with regard to markets, but no single entity has 100% control over any asset, especially one as big as BTC.

[TheUltraElite]

They can play games that result in volatility in the market but in the end, they need higher prices for Bitcoin to get profit. If you don't trade, can hold your bitcoin, you can follow BlackRock and get profit.

Essentially you need to be careful that you dont take the wrong move of buy high and selling low. We always have the option to sit and wait it out, patience is a virtue in trading, more emphasis on that.

This is a speculative market so such things are just like spending another day in the office, traders have to learn to be comfortable with that, otherwise panic ensues and wrong moves are made.

After all, we are small fries and if we wish to make money we have to take advantage of the low and sell at the high, let them do the manipulation. This is no way changes the decentralized nature of bitcoin.

[irhact]

The lawsuit also highlights that BlackRock's Bitcoin strategy aims to manipulate and control the cryptocurrency, potentially threatening its decentralized nature.

BlackRock has always wanted to control Bitcoin from the very moments that they got interested in Bitcoin and started buying it but their plans are going to fail as Bitcoin can't be controlled. They can succeed for Bitcoin price to be manipulated for some few days but that isn't going to last long a the community is still going to win above the control freaks that thinks that they can control everything. BlackRock and the government aren't different, they all have the same purpose to centralized Bitcoin and as BlackRock has come in like they're the saviour of the market, most people have been welcoming them without knowing their true intentions but they won't win.

[BlackBoss_]

The lawsuit also highlights that BlackRock's Bitcoin strategy aims to manipulate and control the cryptocurrency, potentially threatening its decentralized nature.

Bitcoin decentralization is in its development, network in hashrate distributions to full node distributions that are contributors for decentralization of development to block and transaction finding, verification.

BlackRock don't control Bitcoin network hashrate or do 51% attacks, their plans are not like this.

BlackRock has always wanted to control Bitcoin from the very moments that they got interested in Bitcoin and started buying it but their plans are going to fail as Bitcoin can't be controlled.

BlackRock are big corporation and they did research and understood Bitcoin very well before they submit Bitcoin Spot ETF application and invest capital in Bitcoin as well as resources for products around Bitcoin.

They knew well that if they control Bitcoin, destroy its decentralization, Bitcoin will become useless and value drops, price crashes. Think about that scenario like whether it is what BlackRock want to have after spending a lot of resources into Bitcoin?

I see the strong answer is No, they don't want it.

[Negotiation]

In my opinion bitcoin's greatest strength is its decentralized nature it is a peer to peer digital currency which is outside the control of any central institution or government. This nature of bitcoin makes it extremely difficult and perhaps impossible for any institution to control. If BlackRock or any other large financial institution wanted to participate in the bitcoin or other cryptocurrency markets they could buy it, create a trust or ETF but it is not possible for them to control the underlying structure of bitcoin or its crypto network. BlackRock's plan was to control bitcoin but due to the decentralized nature of bitcoin it is not possible for them to completely control it.

[john_egbert]

In my opinion bitcoin's greatest strength is its decentralized nature it is a peer to peer digital currency which is outside the control of any central institution or government. This nature of bitcoin makes it extremely difficult and perhaps impossible for any institution to control. If BlackRock or any other large financial institution wanted to participate in the bitcoin or other cryptocurrency markets they could buy it, create a trust or ETF but it is not possible for them to control the underlying structure of bitcoin or its crypto network. BlackRock's plan was to control bitcoin but due to the decentralized nature of bitcoin it is not possible for them to completely control it.

Nobody sees BTC as such a big target to topple the network down in some manner.

And that's great, because in such a way, BTC still goes up adoption-wise while keeping most participants off the radar to not to halt the process in big countries especially.

[DanWalker]

In my opinion bitcoin's greatest strength is its decentralized nature it is a peer to peer digital currency which is outside the control of any central institution or government. This nature of bitcoin makes it extremely difficult and perhaps impossible for any institution to control. If BlackRock or any other large financial institution wanted to participate in the bitcoin or other cryptocurrency markets they could buy it, create a trust or ETF but it is not possible for them to control the underlying structure of bitcoin or its crypto network. BlackRock's plan was to control bitcoin but due to the decentralized nature of bitcoin it is not possible for them to completely control it.

Blackrock is one of the largest asset management companies in the world and their main goal is only profit. I don't think they want to control the bitcoin blockchain, they just want to manipulate the entire crypto market (including bitcoin) for huge profits.

People always say that bitcoin blockchain is decentralized and no one can control it. That's true but the problem is that not many people care or express a desire to control it, we are just making those assumptions ourselves. What most institutions want is to control and manipulate the price of bitcoin, and they have the power to do so.

[hero_the_bossman]

In my opinion bitcoin's greatest strength is its decentralized nature it is a peer to peer digital currency which is outside the control of any central institution or government. This nature of bitcoin makes it extremely difficult and perhaps impossible for any institution to control. If BlackRock or any other large financial institution wanted to participate in the bitcoin or other cryptocurrency markets they could buy it, create a trust or ETF but it is not possible for them to control the underlying structure of bitcoin or its crypto network. BlackRock's plan was to control bitcoin but due to the decentralized nature of bitcoin it is not possible for them to completely control it.

Blackrock is one of the largest asset management companies in the world and their main goal is only profit. I don't think they want to control the bitcoin blockchain, they just want to manipulate the entire crypto market (including bitcoin) for huge profits.

People always say that bitcoin blockchain is decentralized and no one can control it. That's true but the problem is that not many people care or express a desire to control it, we are just making those assumptions ourselves. What most institutions want is to control and manipulate the price of bitcoin, and they have the power to do so.

It's not the time for them to think about controlling the network to such an extent (yet).

For now, everybody with big capital wants just to profit from it just like many enthusiasts out there.