Destroying Bitcoin (Your Fault)

[ElPicaroTrader]

I’m going to try to write this without crossing the line into insults, although frankly, that is becoming increasingly difficult.

And this message is especially directed at the whales who may be reading this forum.

Bitcoin and the crypto market are manipulated. Period.

I do not believe that a market where a relatively small number of players control absurd amounts of capital can constantly be presented as a free, clean market driven simply by supply and demand.

Whales can trigger brutal moves, create panic, fuel euphoria, wipe out leveraged positions, buy when small investors capitulate, and sell when enthusiasm comes back.

Then we repeat the cycle.

Again and again.

Meanwhile, the small investor is the one paying for the party.

What is truly unbelievable is that some of you seem to think this can continue forever.

Maybe you are making absolute fortunes.

Congratulations.

But while you squeeze every rally, every crash, every liquidation and every moment of fear out of this market, you are also achieving something else: **you are destroying trust in Bitcoin.**

And that should concern you.

Because you do not need to be an expert to understand that an asset needs new buyers.

It needs people who trust it.

It needs adoption.

It needs people willing to put their savings into it because they believe they are participating in something with a future, not entering a casino where four giants can move the table whenever it suits them.

Every time you squeeze the market too hard, every time you crush the small investor, every time someone enters Bitcoin thinking of it as a long-term investment and leaves convinced that they were taking part in a rigged game, you lose another potential Bitcoin user.

And that strikes me as incredibly stupid.

If I were a whale and had hundreds of millions or billions tied directly or indirectly to crypto, my priority would be to get Bitcoin into the hands of hundreds of millions of people.

I would want mass adoption.

I would want people to trust Bitcoin.

I would want companies, investors and ordinary people around the world to want to own it.

I would want a vastly larger market.

Because in the long run, that would make me far richer.

But apparently, some people would rather extract every last dollar they can from smaller investors today, even if doing so damages the very market they expect to keep profiting from tomorrow.

It is short-term greed at the expense of long-term value.

You can keep manipulating the price.

You can keep triggering liquidations.

You can keep using your capital to extract money from participants who are vastly smaller than you.

You can keep celebrating every time you manage to buy lower what a frightened investor has just sold.

But do not confuse making money with doing something intelligent for Bitcoin’s future.

Because you can make a fortune while, at the same time, destroying your own market.

And one day you may realize that you have driven so many people away that the only ones left buying and selling are the same whales trading among themselves.

Now that would be a great victory.

Managing to completely control the market after making sure almost nobody else wants to participate in it.

If any major holder reading this forum thinks I am wrong, fine.

I would genuinely like to hear the argument.

Explain to me how repeatedly crushing small investors, destroying confidence, and turning Bitcoin into a market that looks manipulated by an extremely powerful minority is supposed to help long-term mass adoption.

Because I do not see it.

What I see is short-term greed putting a far bigger long-term opportunity at risk.

And frankly, I think it is disgraceful.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

Whales can trigger brutal moves, create panic, fuel euphoria, wipe out leveraged positions, buy when small investors capitulate, and sell when enthusiasm comes back.

Then we repeat the cycle.

Again and again.

Whales trigger many things in both bull market and bear market, and it's exactly that these things repeatedly happen cycle by cycle.
It's repeatedly from psychology of market cycle to market price cycle.

The psychology of market cycle.
Psychological pitfalls of market cycle.
Bitcoin's market cycle.

Reading these articles will help many people knowing about cycles of the market in both psychology and price, so that if they actually understand it and manage to build up their investment plans, they will do investment more comfortably, more disciplined and very likely get better ROIs.

[ElPicaroTrader]

If you consider yourself a whale, then let me ask you something directly.

I can understand that in Bitcoin’s early years, when the market was tiny, illiquid and basically made up of a handful of large holders and a few early adopters, price movements could be extreme. Back then, with so little liquidity, a small number of large players could move the market very easily.

Fine.

But Bitcoin is not in that stage anymore.

Crypto is known worldwide. Bitcoin is known worldwide. Institutions, companies, funds and millions of retail investors know what it is.

And yet sometimes it still feels as if instead of “two whales and four monkeys,” we now simply have “five whales and seven monkeys.”

At some point, the explanation of “market cycles” and “market psychology” stops being enough for me.

Are we seriously supposed to believe that Bitcoin must behave like this forever?

That every few years we just accept another huge boom, another collapse, another wave of liquidations, another 50%, 60% or 70% drawdown, and then call it “the cycle”?

How long do you think ordinary people are going to tolerate that?

Because if Bitcoin really wants mass adoption, this matters.

Someone who knows nothing about crypto is not going to look at an asset that can rise 30% and then lose 50% or 70% shortly afterwards and think:

“Yes, this is where I want to put my savings.”

There is a huge difference between a healthy uptrend with corrections and an asset reaching an all-time high and then collapsing by more than half shortly afterwards.

Who is going to trust that?

Who is going to use that as a serious long-term store of value if they believe a small number of extremely powerful market participants can keep pushing it around?

At some point, Bitcoin has to mature.

At some point, the obsession with extreme volatility, liquidations, speculation and these supposedly inevitable “cycles” has to give way to something bigger:

Mass adoption.

Stability.

Trust.

A deeper and broader market.

More participants.

More liquidity.

More people willing to hold Bitcoin because they believe in it, not because they are trying to survive the next violent cycle.

That is what I think many whales still do not understand.

You may understand the cycles perfectly.

You may know how to profit from them perfectly.

But if the end result is that ordinary people look at Bitcoin and decide it is too manipulated, too volatile and too dangerous to touch, then what exactly have you achieved?

Another profitable cycle?

Great.

But Bitcoin was supposed to become much bigger than that.

[C10H15N]

You have described every financial and commodity market on the planet.

The decision to overextend leverage, buy high, and panic sell low is entirely on you.

Quit looking for someone to blame for your poor life choices.  

[pooya87]

I do not believe that a market where a relatively small number of players control absurd amounts of capital can constantly be presented as a free, clean market driven simply by supply and demand.

Market manipulation exists in all markets but it is a lot more complicated than you think. It is not like they "control" the market. There have been so many cases where whales tried to manipulate the market by going against the trend and got crushed by the actual "supply and demand" driven movement.

What is truly unbelievable is that some of you seem to think this can continue forever.

Market manipulation will exist forever like it exists in literally every other market out there. I mean right now the US regime is heavily manipulating the largest global market that is oil to keep the price below its intrinsic value which is at least $250 per barrel. If you thought bitcoin is so special that market manipulation is not going to come here, then you were deeply mistaken.

But while you squeeze every rally, every crash, every liquidation and every moment of fear out of this market, you are also achieving something else: **you are destroying trust in Bitcoin.**

Read the whitepaper, Satoshi's posts, every other thing you can find where it "introduces" bitcoin.
Where did any of it introduce bitcoin as an investment for you to make profit?

Bitcoin is a decentralized payment system that promises censorship resistance, permissionlessness, and in one word financial sovereignty. Never has anyone promised price stability or lack of price manipulation!

It needs people willing to put their savings into it because they believe they are participating in something with a future, not entering a casino where four giants can move the table whenever it suits them.

Exactly.
We need people who are seeking financial sovereignty not people who think they can make profit from bitcoin and complain when the price doesn't move in their desired direction!!!

[ElPicaroTrader]

C10H15N

Nobody is blaming anyone for my good or bad investment decisions.

That is not the point.

Yes, financial markets are manipulated to different degrees across many sectors. I am not denying that.

What I am saying is that in crypto it has reached a level that is becoming embarrassing.

This is still a relatively young sector with enormous potential. Bitcoin and crypto could become genuinely useful to millions of people as an alternative to fiat debasement, inflation and an increasingly fragile monetary system.

And instead of helping that adoption happen, constant excessive manipulation is damaging confidence in the entire space.

That is my criticism.

Not that I bought too high.
Not that I sold too low.
Not that I used too much leverage.

Those would be my responsibility.

I am talking about what repeated extreme manipulation does to the credibility and long-term future of the market itself.

So, to you, I simply say: thank you.

Thank you for helping prove exactly the kind of attitude I am talking about.


pooya87

I think this is exactly where we fundamentally disagree.

Saying that market manipulation exists everywhere does not make it acceptable, healthy, or something that should simply be normalized.

And saying that Bitcoin was created for financial sovereignty does not somehow make extreme price manipulation irrelevant.

Quite the opposite.

If Bitcoin is supposed to represent an alternative to the traditional financial system, to fiat debasement, censorship and monetary abuse, then why should we accept the same destructive behavior that already exists in traditional markets?

What is the point of building a supposedly better financial system if we are going to reproduce the worst parts of the old one?

You say Bitcoin was never promised as a stable investment.

Fine.

But there is a huge difference between normal volatility and a market repeatedly reaching all-time highs and then losing 50% or more in a very short period of time.

If you think that kind of behavior is healthy for mass adoption, then I completely disagree.

Most ordinary people are not going to put meaningful savings into something they believe can be pushed around violently by a relatively small number of very large players.

And this is where I think some long-time holders are missing the bigger picture.

You may understand the cycles.

You may understand the volatility.

You may even profit from it.

But do you seriously believe Bitcoin can behave like this forever and still achieve genuine mass adoption?

Do you really think millions of ordinary people will accept endless cycles of euphoria, collapse, liquidation and fear just because “that is how Bitcoin works”?

At some point, if Bitcoin is going to mature, the market has to mature with it.

And regarding Satoshi: did Satoshi create Bitcoin so that a small number of extremely powerful participants could repeatedly exploit volatility, liquidations and market psychology?

Was that really the objective of financial sovereignty?

Because I do not believe it was.

And I will repeat the point again:

If you defend extreme manipulation simply because “manipulation exists in every market,” then in my opinion you are defending exactly the kind of behavior that can prevent Bitcoin from becoming what many of us believe it could become.

A genuinely global financial alternative.

Not just another market where the biggest players dominate the smallest ones.

[pooya87]

If Bitcoin is supposed to represent an alternative to the traditional financial system, to fiat debasement, censorship and monetary abuse, then why should we accept the same destructive behavior that already exists in traditional markets?

What is the point of building a supposedly better financial system if we are going to reproduce the worst parts of the old one?

We cannot create a perfect system that fixes all the problems that exist in the world. We have Bitcoin that solves some of the problems and could not fix others. I take that as a win.

If you think that kind of behavior is healthy for mass adoption, then I completely disagree.

I never commented on it being healthy or not. I just pointed out that it is a reality that we need to accept.

Is it healthy for adoption? Of course not. I've said it a million times myself. Let me quote myself (look at the dates):

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?

volatility is the main reason preventing bitcoin's mass adoption.

what high volatility prevents is the adoption as a currency which we should really be looking for.

But do you seriously believe Bitcoin can behave like this forever and still achieve genuine mass adoption?

It is not going to be forever though.
One of the reasons why market can be manipulated is the size of it. Compare the degree of manipulation today with a decade ago. It is not even comparable. Or you can compare it with shitcoins with small market.
The more adoption grows, the bigger the market is going to get and that makes manipulation that much more difficult.

Was that really the objective of financial sovereignty?

The point of it was that I can send my own money to anybody on the planet right now in shortest time possible without needing to ask any third party's permission. And nobody can prevent me from doing it.

If you defend extreme manipulation simply because “manipulation exists in every market,” then in my opinion you are defending exactly the kind of behavior that can prevent Bitcoin from becoming what many of us believe it could become.

Well, you complained about something we all knew existed. But you forgot the most important part: what's your solution?

[Dreadboost]

But while you squeeze every rally, every crash, every liquidation and every moment of fear out of this market, you are also achieving something else: **you are destroying trust in Bitcoin.**

Emotions make you weak. When you start thinking like an investor, you are going to understand why most whales, the millionaires and billionaires, don't care about the trust in Bitcoin. What they are after is their profit, not minding how long it will take them to get it. The profit they get from the market is enough to cover losses if they make them in the future. Real investors are not moved by emotion or love. They have no empathy for the asset unless it's going to favor them.

What is truly unbelievable is that some of you seem to think this can continue forever.

The situation is not subject to change soon. Whales will get richer, while short-term traders and instant-profit investors will keep paying for their mistake.
Don't be amazed if this continues forever.

[d5000]

At some point, Bitcoin has to mature.

I agree with some of your points (although you use a lot of words for them ).

But I'm less pessimistic than you.

Volatility is already lowering. See this thread and this chart:



Yellow line is the Bitcoin volatility, the orange line is the BRL (Brazilian Real) volatility.

BRL is a quite average fiat currency. It has a volatility of 0.5 to 1 approximately.

Bitcoin is between 1 and 3, the record low was about 0.7. Before ~2023, it was much higher (5 was common, in the 2010s even 10).

The Bitcoin line is approaching the BRL line.

Even without fancy calculations you can already see it if you compare the bull and bear markets. They were much steeper in the past than now.

1-2 bull/bear cycles more and we have the level of gold.

DCA is also becoming increasingly popular, and it is a method to benefit from market manipulation, above all of panic.

I don't say everything is good. I'd like people being less excited about volatility too. But it's also not as bad as you describe.

Peace

[Hewlet]

This is still a relatively young sector with enormous potential. Bitcoin and crypto could become genuinely useful to millions of people as an alternative to fiat debasement, inflation and an increasingly fragile monetary system.

As long as bitcoin exist in such a way that anyone that has interest in it can buy s much as his finance can carry, whales must always have a say in it and wether their approach harms bitcoin or not is not something we can blame them about because a thing that is decentralized opens her harm to different people including the ones that are just after profit and monopoly and nothing more.

Over the years, whales have always been a part of the bitcoin community and as long as they have the means to influence the market just like it is with other sectors, there existence and influence will continue to create a ripple effect around the bitcoin ecosystem particularly with regards the way price moves and how their decision affect prices.

[Tungbulu]

If Bitcoin is supposed to represent an alternative to the traditional financial system, to fiat debasement, censorship and monetary abuse, then why should we accept the same destructive behavior that already exists in traditional markets?

What is the point of building a supposedly better financial system if we are going to reproduce the worst parts of the old one?

We cannot create a perfect system that fixes all the problems that exist in the world. We have Bitcoin that solves some of the problems and could not fix others. I take that as a win.

I believe the real mistake people do is looking at a technology and already thinking about the problems that that technology cannot solve. I think has done more than enough in the world of finance, giving complete ownership and freedom to control their money isn’t something that should be taken for granted because it has changed a lot of things, even beyond the world of finance, but still somehow allowing society to take care of the problems that requires human judgement, institutions and cooperation. That limitation is actually part of its strength.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

I believe the real mistake people do is looking at a technology and already thinking about the problems that that technology cannot solve. I think has done more than enough in the world of finance, giving complete ownership and freedom to control their money isn’t something that should be taken for granted because it has changed a lot of things, even beyond the world of finance, but still somehow allowing society to take care of the problems that requires human judgement, institutions and cooperation. That limitation is actually part of its strength.

Bitcoin is a technological project and blockchain is a technology which changes the world while Bitcoin lays first successful decentralized blockchain that changes the world too.

People can learn about Bitcoin at different levels, from fundamentals to technical and with Bitcoin users and investors, what they need is quite fundamental. To use bitcoin, they don't need to learn too technical knowledge and it's the same with investment practice.

People need to learn and understand about Bitcoin supply scheme vs time, and realize big advantage if they are early comers, early investors.

How is the 21M bitcoin cap defined and enforced?
It is enough to have belief in Bitcoin future, and to start investing.

[rbynxx]

But you won't be able to tell them not to do that when the system itself is available without any intermediaries, no restrictions, traded 24/7, etc. Yes we want that to happen and you got your point, but it is what it is, there will be extractions but you can't tell those who believe about this technology to be delusional on holding it, let those who want to profit, profit. You'll be on the same shoes if you've got the edge too, just saying.

[KiaKia]

I'm not buying any of these because I can remember how many times Micro Strategy have bought good amount of Bitcoin and we still dump some hours to days later, it's not as if any buys 100 BTC right now the market will skyrocket to the sky like some shitcoins.

A group of whales that plann to manipulate the market must make sure that Bitcoin chart is already very bullish, so the handful amount that they will buy will just boost and help the performance, that's all I can say, Bitcoin is too big for some billionaires to manipulate.

Talking about war break out and shit, this only scares away people who wants to buy, panic affects the buyers not Bitcoin itself, Bitcoin has no emotions, it feels nothing, you really aren't helping yourself believing in that nonsense.

If I can manipulate the market I would crumble Bitcoin that its chart would reveal it all, I will then buy massive amount and pump the market again, but look at the chart of Bitcoin since launch, that's bullishness at its best, people are pissed because they don't want to see corrections and that's impossible.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

A group of whales that plann to manipulate the market must make sure that Bitcoin chart is already very bullish, so the handful amount that they will buy will just boost and help the performance, that's all I can say, Bitcoin is too big for some billionaires to manipulate.

They do their jobs as whales in the market but we can do our jobs as retail investors with advantage of small capitals. We can more easily enter and exit the market than whales with bigger capitals.

If we understand a fact that whales do their market manipulation for profit, not for loss, we will see how interesting the future is if we can simply focus on bitcoin accumulation, hold bitcoin we have, and wait for whales to pump the market. At the end of their manipulation game in each Bitcoin market cycle, they will pump Bitcoin market. Price will soar a lot and if we can hold our bitcoin from accumulation time to such market pumping time, we will have good chances of taking profit.

We don't need to do anything for manipulating the market, whales do that for us.

[Ambatman]

Whales can trigger brutal moves, create panic, fuel euphoria, wipe out leveraged positions, buy when small investors capitulate, and sell when enthusiasm comes back.

It's present in every market
Though may seem relatively exaggerated
But it becomes harder as its depth increases and adoption grows.
Data already shows that volatility is dropping as the years goes by.
Bitcoin is still young and volatility is usually associated with such
As it grows in adoption and real world understanding it matured and becomes less likely to manipulate
Doesn't mean price wouldn't be.

What I see is short-term greed putting a far bigger long-term opportunity at risk.

I hope you aware is possible to Hold rather than trade
Manipulations effects are usually short term.

[terrific]

Therefore: every financial market is manipulated.
US stocks is manipulated.
S & P 100/500 is manipulated.
What else can we say that's not manipulated?
Even the oil is a rigged market and the strikes are happening again to manipulate it.
There's no way to control as a shrimp like me with these matters. I'd go where money is flowing and be early than the others.

[mirakal]

I am not actually one of those whales, but I think its not also proper to blame the whales because they are manipulating the market. But whales are whales, since they hold majority of bitcoin, whatever their actions and decisions will affect the market positively and negatively.

But let's be realistic, bitcoin is offering equal opportunities to every investor, but those investors who have bigger funding will surely take the most advantage, and I think that's not their  fault. They are just doing their own business, if it means destroying bitcoin and the rest of small investors, well this market is full of competition so you can't expect that everything will come out fair and clean.

[Maslate]

You have described every financial and commodity market on the planet.

The decision to overextend leverage, buy high, and panic sell low is entirely on you.

Quit looking for someone to blame for your poor life choices.  

You're right there. No one is being deprived from investing in bitcoin, you can accumulate as much as you can and make the most of profits in the future. That's actually up to you. That's how the mindset of whales work, that's why we can't blame them if they can easily manipulate the market if they want to.

Instead, focus on growing your bitcoin portfolio, and stop pointing fingers to the whales. No one is to be blamed here, but your poor decisions in life that prevent you from enjoying the bigger picture of bitcoin. You don't have to compete with the whales, but you can always do your part and maximize bitcoin accumulation for future massive profits.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

Can you think of anything that had gotten the approval of many to be accepted as Mass adoption, does such asset has manipulated attitude price manipulation?

Yes, I have said many times that Bitcoin can't be used for mass adoption because of it's price movement, either manipulative or not,

What can be used widely accepted for large usage is stablecoin, every investor will certainly stay safe and comfortable investment in stablecoin because Price fluctuations wouldn't caused trust issues and much mental damage.

Like d500 said, many investors are practicing DCA because of the nature of Bitcoin, that's it.