Do whales harm themselves with the dumps?

[cafucafucafu]

For all of us holders and non-holders, an organic rise in the price would be beneficial. A steady rise will only bring in new holders and users. However these pumps and dumps really delay a slow rise and they put people off adoption.

Would is not benefit the whales more just to hold rather than keep putting people off with their dumps?

[jbrnt]

I think holding is a cost and a risk for them. They could invest in something else while holding and make more profits. It is in their best interest to hold for as little time as possible and reap in guaranteed profits.

[Amph]

they are professional traders i believe, this mean that it's worth for them to trade, and to generate as many P&D as possibile, obviously there many whales, so some of them will end up losing money

the point here is to increase your bitcoin number, holding them can't do that

and they don't dump , but they make you dump, to buy cheap, at least this should be their strategy with all those walls

[cafucafucafu]

they are professional traders i believe, this mean that it's worth for them to trade, and to generate as many P&D as possibile, obviously there many whales, so some of them will end up losing money

the point here is to increase your bitcoin number, holding them can't do that

and they don't dump , but they make you dump, to buy cheap, at least this should be their strategy with all those walls

Do you this they may have gambler's type of of psychology? Some of these recent sharp dumps seem to be more downward than they amount they could have pumped. I get the impression that some are just gambling again and again and losing out.

I do think these dumps are pushing some guys away from btc and thus having a bad affect on the price. The whales would do better to just let things grow. After the recent dumps the growth rate has suffocated.

[NUFCrichard]

Maybe these whales are in fact miners who need to realise some of their profits to pay the bills?
Or they are leveraged shorts that kick the market downwards purposely, remember peopl can make money in both directions now..

If it is just people with lots of bitcoins selling on a whim, then yes, it's stupid!

[randy8777]

they are whale for a reason. they know exactly what to do without losing a single penny.
whales are not that different from us "normal traders" except that they have a huge load of funds.
they have a trading stash and a personal stash in cold storage. they will benefit anyway no matter if the price goes up or down.

[calme]

It is true that many whales harm themselves. Many of them are cutters. I know a whale who cut himself and is currently serving a prison sentence for whaling. 

[Dilla]

Dump coins, cause market drop, buy more back at lower price, repeat.
They hurt themselves if another whale makes a bigger buy just after they dump, and the price jumps higher than they sold.
Many whales work together to manipulate the market.
Everyone holding/trading a small amount of btc are just gambling on the moves of the whales.

[JimboToronto]

Let's not overlook the possibility of people or groups sacrificing a bit by dumping a few thousand coins at a fairly small loss in order to lower the exchange price that determines the price they pay for tens of thousands of coins off-exchange, i.e. from a mining consortium.

Not everyone is a day trader.

[cafucafucafu]

they are whale for a reason. they know exactly what to do without losing a single penny.

Not necessarily. Early miners with thousands of coins are not necessarily good traders.

[Q7]

I think the whales consist of people or organization which will see a huge benefit if bitcoin is dead. It's not that they will make money in every pump and dump and they actually have the unlimited funding. To them it's not about making money in bitcoin but rather seeing people losing confidence in the bitcoin system by making the price crash and look awful.

[Hfleer]

Its amazing what people think that traders with bigger bankrolls do....

If someone has enough money to move a market, does he really need to be intelligent and superior to all other market participants?
I really doubt it...

Many whales beat the market because they can do off-exchange trades for huge amounts. Kind of a dark lquidity pool they can tap into, if they want.

[alani123]

http://orderbook.info/ is a great example of why bitcoin sell or buy walls don't really mean all that much.

Orders that would be normal if we were talking about another market are huge for bitcoin. Here's an example: The slaying of bearwhale. An investor puts a large order well below market rates and the market takes about six hours to chunk through it.

Now back to orderbook.info. Do you see how the orders on top rarely exceed the size of $1000? That still happens while we get a trade volume close to $20m each day. If you're looking to find support levels by looking at a bitcoin order book you're a fool. It's so easy to cancel an order in bitcoin exchanges that there's not even a point to base your predictions on order books.

Despite al that, some investors willing to diversify their assets and even take risks put money in bitcoin. They most likely look for quick returns but also don't mind to take loss since they have millions on their hands. Given that manipulating a market of this size and nature by creating fake demand is easy, the come in and out quickly.

Put simply, whales that deal with bitcoin don't care about hurting themselves (especially for the extremely short term), they care about manipulating the market.

[randy8777]

they are whale for a reason. they know exactly what to do without losing a single penny.

Not necessarily. Early miners with thousands of coins are not necessarily good traders.

instead of quoting a small fraction of my post you can also read that i am talking about whale traders and not early miners.

[gargantuar]

Usually they just harm others:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/diver-encased-whale-feces-swim-article-1.2091056

[Hfleer]

Its a free market anyway, so you don't "harm" anyone, because entering those markets was risky to begin with. It's not like you suddenly cheated someone.

[Morecoin Freeman]

It is more profitable for traders to have volatility. In this market you can make money every day.

I see holding bitcoin, and waiting for everyone else to push the price up for you, as way more of a gamble. You're not in control of this situation at all which is too risky for me. You let the whales play with your balls. If they decide to dump you are rekt.

Thus, if you know how to trade, multiplying your investment by trading is more likely than by playing the holding and waiting game.

[Hfleer]

It is more profitable for traders to have volatility. In this market you can make money every day.

I see holding bitcoin, and waiting for everyone else to push the price up for you, as way more of a gamble. You're not in control of this situation at all which is too risky for me. You let the whales play with your balls. If they decide to dump you are rekt.

Thus, if you know how to trade, multiplying your investment by trading is more likely than by playing the holding and waiting game.

But moving the market can be very bad for you too.

Google slippage.

[Morecoin Freeman]

Oh and to answer OP more specifically:
Most big players in bitcoin trading do not care about the bitcoin technology, which saddens me being a bitcoin enthusiast myself.
They will just keep pumping and dumping, leeching more and more money out of the market. That is also one of the many reasons we keep seeing lower prices.

How will this end? No one knows...

[Hfleer]

Oh and to answer OP more specifically:
Most big players in bitcoin trading do not care about the bitcoin technology, which saddens me being a bitcoin enthusiast myself.
They will just keep pumping and dumping, leeching more and more money out of the market. That is also one of the many reasons we keep seeing lower prices.

How will this end? No one knows...

Trading has nothing to do with the technologie anyways. One is a financial decision, the other is a technical innovation.

Please show me how your argument is relevant.