Who is behind the flash crash?

[DavidHume]

Maybe it is btc-e trying to force a margin call on their over leveraged traders.

The could have dump enough to cause the traders to sell at worst possible price with them buying it all up at that price.

[ed_teech]

Isn't it because bitcoin demand has decreased ? Why a conspiracy should even exist ?

Take a look at the BSI:

http://www.coindesk.com/sentiment-index/

[ticoti]

I think that behind this is an organised whales group that wanted to buy cheap before winter coming alcist rally
this is not caused by the mistake of a whale

[C64_4EVA]

Clearly margin traders were behind the crash (exchanges that do not offer margin trading did not drop nearly as low). I expect many more of these flash crashes (as well as flash rallys) to come as more and more people start trading with leverage.

[iluvpie60]

Short selling and long term selling and flash selling and whatever are all allowed. Everyone says bitcoin trustless for the protocol and they are right, the exchanges are not trustless, you have to trust t hem if you want to trade there, a consequence of centralization is price manipulation, exchanges centralize buying and selling power unfortunately.

[Starcade]

I haven't been able to add funds to cex.io for two days already.  The browser keeps timing out.  And they've been doing maintenance for two days also.  I want to buy GH's while it's low...but cannot.  This is manipulation.  Also on another note.  Because of this problem I signed up for Terminal.com using BTC so that I could mine with a cloud server.  Well... I tryed to sign up with a username of my own and my own email but an error MSG popped up saying I didn't have 'credentials'.  Well... I had to sign up using the other option, which was using my google+ account.  Do you think google has it's hand in the cookie jar?  I believe so.  (terminal.com didn't credit me for the 0.020 btc that I paid.  All I got was the free $5. Lol.)

[itsAj]

Clearly margin traders were behind the crash (exchanges that do not offer margin trading did not drop nearly as low). I expect many more of these flash crashes (as well as flash rallys) to come as more and more people start trading with leverage.

The crash was after a big run up in the amount of leverage being used. It was also shortly after bitfinex changed the way that interest is paid, creating additional selling pressure that was "unexpected" by the market. I don't think there will ever be enough interest in short selling bitcoin in order to cause a short squeeze.

[giveBTCpls]

There are too many variables to try to render a single cause for a crash. It would be like trying to predict weather with 100% acuracy. Just not gonna happen. Too many factors.

[thehappybtc]

Probably a whale or some rich people together trying to keep the price low to buy cheap coins before the big jump.

[zymafluo]

Maybe now the same whales who tried to crash the price are buying back and rising the value.

[Ayers]

it was said that ethereum was the cause, it could be possible seeing how it is just a small crush, now we are at the end of the week, the price will recover in the next week presumably

[odolvlobo]

Maybe now the same whales who tried to crash the price are buying back and rising the value.

Probably a whale or some rich people together trying to keep the price low to buy cheap coins before the big jump.

You believe that somebody drove the price down, by selling at around $310 (on BTC-e) in the flash crash, and that they are now trying to profit from buying it back at $500.

Please explain to me how that is supposed to work.

[Coinfan]

It's human nature: people always try to explain their loses on some kind of conspiracy or scam.

But bearish trends do exist naturally, even in bitcoin. Many of those  dumpers were people about to be liquidated on Bitfinex and Btc-e because of margin long positions and that needed to unload.

They are no conspirator or scammers, they are just people that lost their shirts because of wrong trades.

Shore, people do try to manipulate the market, but that doesn't mean they are successful on their attempts. Or that they can move even the chinese exchanges that are the ones leading the decline.

[wasserman99]

It's human nature: people always try to explain their loses on some kind of conspiracy or scam.

But bearish trends do exist naturally, even in bitcoin. Many of those  dumpers were people about to be liquidated on Bitfinex and Btc-e because of margin long positions and that needed to unload.

I would disagree with this. I think people will claim manipulation because a market is unregulated. For example few people were claiming that the market was being manipulated when the stock market crashed in 2008/2009. At least they were not saying it was being manipulated to be falling, the government was openly trying to manipulate it so it would not fall as much or would recover, however the point remains.

I think the conspiracy theories derive from the fact that bitcoin exchanges and the overall bitcoin economy is barely regulated. Most markets are much more heavily regulated then the bitcoin market is. IMO these conspiracy theorists are essentially begging for Bitcoin to be more regulated, but also kicking and screaming when the government tries to implement even small amounts of regulation.

[Coinfan]

Even on regulated markets it's very common to find people explaining their loses on manipulation from whales or inside informers, without any evidence.

The responsibility is never ours, there is always an obscure reason to explain our debacles.

[catlinhappy]

Most likely, this is Satoshi. We have turned our backs on His ideals and now He is punishing us. If we do not correct and turn to the way of Our Lord, He will shake hands so harshly, only the purist of Idealoshis will stay in.

I strongly believe so too.Otherwise what other explanation can be given to the unexpected turn around in the price of BTC if not a ''taste of the rout of Satoshi''.

[kerafym]

Even on regulated markets it's very common to find people explaining their loses on manipulation from whales or inside informers, without any evidence.

The responsibility is never ours, there is always an obscure reason to explain our debacles.

Flash clash has to be caused by whale, since they are the only group that hold that many bitcoins and can dump that much on the market.

[ahoenk]

IMO There is someone who hold a lot of BTC, and the man who hold it get the BTC from illegal way ( Scam/fraud/something like that ) and that man only want a cash fiat, thats why he sold it at very low price...

[Coinfan]

Even if whales were the main driver of flash crashes, that wouldn't mean it was any kind of manipulative conspiracy. Sometimes people forget that whales have much bigger headaches than small fish, because it isn't easy to sell their holdings.

Whales also make mistakes, trade in panic and when they lose, they really lose.

Think on Soros. He has much more trouble sleeping than most of us. We can have the money in a bank and have a public insurance on the deposit. He can't. He has too much money for that. If he bets on the wrong bank, he is screwed.

But a breach of a support line can also trigger crashes. Many traders start selling and you have a crash.

Anyway, as I wrote, the chinese are leading the market. Therefore, our whales have no other choice than dump their coins when the chinese decided it was time to sell. Conspiracies? Not from westerns, we are the puppets.

[yunkie]

Vitalik cashing out for some lambos