Interesting Observation

[aq]

During the recent MtGox glitch an interesting observation could be made:
The buyers buy at any price, it is the sellers that are trying to bring the price down.
As all the low asks vanished, one would have expected that there is no more buying, because of the high price. But instead the buying continued regardless of price. Later the price was only brought down by sellers making huge dumps instead of cautious selling.
So the question that arises is what is the incentive for sellers to sell at some lower price?
Why is the Bitcoin world inverse to the real one, where buyers try to keep the prices low and sellers try to keep them high?

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[mem]

I think we were just seeing panic buyers fearing the price was about to leave them behind.

[waspoza]

Its because bitcoin market is still very young and need time to mature. Signs of maturity are already visible. Number of coin dumps is already much lower than year ago.

[Mageant]

During the recent MtGox glitch an interesting observation could be made:
The buyers buy at any price, it is the sellers that are trying to bring the price down.
As all the low asks vanished, one would have expected that there is no more buying, because of the high price. But instead the buying continued regardless of price. Later the price was only brought down by sellers making huge dumps instead of cautious selling.
So the question that arises is what is the incentive for sellers to sell at some lower price?
Why is the Bitcoin world inverse to the real one, where buyers try to keep the prices low and sellers try to keep them high?

It's possible somebody is trying to manipulate the price down.

[Blind]

During the recent MtGox glitch an interesting observation could be made:
The buyers buy at any price, it is the sellers that are trying to bring the price down.
As all the low asks vanished, one would have expected that there is no more buying, because of the high price. But instead the buying continued regardless of price. Later the price was only brought down by sellers making huge dumps instead of cautious selling.
So the question that arises is what is the incentive for sellers to sell at some lower price?
Why is the Bitcoin world inverse to the real one, where buyers try to keep the prices low and sellers try to keep them high?

It's possible somebody is trying to manipulate the price down.

1. Price goes up.
2. Dump boat load, profit, bring price down, create uncertainty.
2a. Pray it won't bounce back immediately.
3. Hope for others to follow.
4. Buy back slowly at lower rate.
5. Rinse, repeat.

[dopamine]

Low capitalization of 9.661M bitcoins real easy to move the price up or down, it will be very hard to manipulate the price when bitcoins is worth $100 per BTC

[Stephen Gornick]

The buyers buy at any price,

Trading bots don't know the difference between "oops, sorry we had to clear the order book so there are no asks" and "rally rally rally".

So there were some (a lot) of trades that would not have occurred were it more evident of what happened (an order book not truly reflective of supply and demand).

This happens a lot from Mt. Gox ...   they are a release early and release often organization.  This is another instance where the cost of errors from doing this are absorbed by Mt. Gox's customers and not by the exchange.

So if you made a little money when that happened congratulations, but it was not predictable (well, not to those of us who don't know when Mt. Gox will be putting into production new versions of their software) and hopefully not something that repeats.

[AbsoluteZero]

During the recent MtGox glitch an interesting observation could be made:
The buyers buy at any price, it is the sellers that are trying to bring the price down.
As all the low asks vanished, one would have expected that there is no more buying, because of the high price. But instead the buying continued regardless of price. Later the price was only brought down by sellers making huge dumps instead of cautious selling.
So the question that arises is what is the incentive for sellers to sell at some lower price?
Why is the Bitcoin world inverse to the real one, where buyers try to keep the prices low and sellers try to keep them high?

I do not think people are trying to manipulate the price of bitcoins.

JP Morgan is too busy manipulating silver and libor.

[ElectricMucus]

During the recent MtGox glitch an interesting observation could be made:
The buyers buy at any price, it is the sellers that are trying to bring the price down.
As all the low asks vanished, one would have expected that there is no more buying, because of the high price. But instead the buying continued regardless of price. Later the price was only brought down by sellers making huge dumps instead of cautious selling.
So the question that arises is what is the incentive for sellers to sell at some lower price?
Why is the Bitcoin world inverse to the real one, where buyers try to keep the prices low and sellers try to keep them high?

I do not think people are trying to manipulate the price of bitcoins.

JP Morgan is too busy manipulating silver and libor.

Who their employees? Why should the group even care about BTC?
That doesn't even make sense.

Single individuals with enough cash or vested interest in bitcoin already have plenty of motivation to manipulate BTC, you don't need JPM.

[TraderTimm]

Single individuals with enough cash or vested interest in bitcoin already have plenty of motivation to manipulate BTC, you don't need JPM.

So, how much cash do you need?

[ElectricMucus]

Single individuals with enough cash or vested interest in bitcoin already have plenty of motivation to manipulate BTC, you don't need JPM.

So, how much cash do you need?

Feeling generous?

[TraderTimm]

Single individuals with enough cash or vested interest in bitcoin already have plenty of motivation to manipulate BTC, you don't need JPM.

So, how much cash do you need?

Feeling generous?

I just thought you had analyzed the market and had a ready answer for how much you'd need to manipulate it.

I'll retract my statement in light of you not being prepared to answer...