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Researchers Find That One Person Likely Drove Bitcoin From $150 to $1,000 (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Researchers Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore, and Tali Oberman have written a fascinating paper on Bitcoin price manipulation. Entitled "Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem" and appearing in the recent issue of the Journal of Monetary Economics the paper describes to what degree the Bitcoin ecosystem is controlled by bad actors. To many it's been obvious that the Bitcoin markets are, at the very least, being manipulated by one or two big players. "This paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the Mt. Gox Bitcoin currency exchange, in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188 million were fraudulently acquired," the researchers wrote.
"During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity. Based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks, the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the USD-BTC exchange rate in late 2013, when the rate jumped from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months." The team found that many instances of price manipulation happened simply because the market was very thin for various cryptocurrencies including early Bitcoin.
"During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity. Based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks, the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the USD-BTC exchange rate in late 2013, when the rate jumped from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months." The team found that many instances of price manipulation happened simply because the market was very thin for various cryptocurrencies including early Bitcoin.
I was selling a bridge and some beach front property in Arizona...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
(searches feelings)
Nnnnnooooooooooooo!!!!
This was discovered years ago. Why is it being published again now?
I got to hand it to you..... Um.... Sorry... You need to get that looked at.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
this is a disingenuous post. It doesn't mention the analysis is about the 2013 mt gox event until the second paragraph yet somehow infers during the first paragraph that bitcoin is a highly manipulated market subject to the whims of 1 or 2 individuals.
i don't believe that's the case in 2017. the market is completely different in 2017 vs 2013 yet a naive reading of this post may infer conclusions are being drawn about 2017/18.
Why do people get upset that 1% of the population owns 50% of the world's wealth. And in response they flock to something like bitcoin, where 1000 people or 0.007% owns 40% of the wealth?
Don't lie so much to yourself so much, it's a bad habit for a gambler. No such thing as pot committed in this game, get out in time.
So they said "in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188 million were fraudulently acquired." and the article explains "The manipulation happened primarily via two bots, Markus and Willy, that seemed to be performing valid trades but did not actually own the bitcoin they were using." If you own BTC, all you can do is sell it. So someone who owns or controls a bunch of bitcoins can only drive down the price. Someone who owns a ton of USD can make the price go up. So at a fundamental level this article makes no sense. Now registering trades for currency they didn't actually own through some kind of security vulnerability makes sense because the exchange would register that the trade happened without verifying fund ownership change, which absolutely would drive up the price. So maybe they're saying that happened instead?
the paper describes to what degree the Bitcoin ecosystem is controlled by bad actors.
Jeez, Shatner gets the blame for everything these days.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
This old story making the rounds again? The paper underlying it was published over a year ago but the claims have been circulating online conspiracy boards since the fall of mtgox.
most of the folks I know who are gun-ho on bitcoin are libertarian types, not leftists. e.g. they're flocking to bitcoin because they see it as a way out using fiat currencies. The actual left are nervous about bitcoin for the same reason. Too much power in anyone's hands usually get abused.
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During the Dot Com boom, there were plenty of eCurrencies that started up. During their rise, they were worth a lot, had a lot of people respecting them, and their value was all going up. Now, they are all extinct. (Not just worthless, but gone completely.) I'm not saying that it's 100% guaranteed that Bitcoin will follow, but don't just blindly assume that Bitcoin is so intrinsically different than those Dot Com Boom eCurrencies that it can't possibly fail.
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the market is completely different in 2017 vs 2013
Yes, in 2013 we only had geek speculators, today we have wall street and non-geek general public speculators. A far healthier environment. ;-)
Bitcoins are extremely popular for drug dealers and human traffickers. Way nicer people than "evil gubnents!"
A) No sarcasm tag?
B) Actually, maybe that is extremely correct... have you ever MET a drug dealer? A lot of them are actually pretty nice, and wait for you to give money to them instead of taking it from you without even asking.
As for human traffickers they are scum but it's still hard to say many governments are that much more advanced morally, since they also prey on the weak and steal lives.
You're backing a currency that literally gets traded for human beings
The same is true of any currency though, especially the USD.... No-one can realistically in the modern age go without using some kind of currency. Although Bitcoin comes closest to making that practical because at least you are not supporting some central authority with questionable morals.
Someone who trades in human lives is going to take whatever for payment. Maybe it's USD or BTC today, but it would just be something else if you take both those away.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The problem with ecurrencies of the past compared to bitcoin, is the fact that .com's created them. They became assets when the .com folded and the creditors picked the carcass clean of whatever remained.
No single company owns bitcoin or the other crypto currencies that exist today. No company folding is going to make them disappear. The only thing that is going to make them disappear is law. Good luck with that. cryptos will just go underground.
Just like encryption techniques, and the govt wanting back doors. The cat is already out of the bag for unbreakable encryption. No matter how much you try and put the cat back in the bag its not going back. Same thing with crypto currency ideas
Even if bitcoin fails, the idea of how it works will continue. People now have way to move money around without govt interference.
Ever see those signs at the airport about not taking more than $10k though customs? There's basically no way to move huge sums of money in/out of the country without some govt interference. You can't do it electronically you cant carry it on your person on a plane. Now with bitcoin you can print your private key and bitcoin address on a slip of paper, tuck it away some place where it won't be found and walk right on a plane, get to your destination. Use those details on the slip of paper to setup your wallet again and pull whatever amount of money you had in there back out in your destination's local currency. Hell with some wallets today you dont even need to print out all that info. They have recovery phrases that can recover everything. If you can remember a couple dozen words in the correct order and recite them from memory at the other side of your trip you've just done the same thing
There's absolutely nothing stopping someone that put $1000 into bitcoin way back when, who now has over 1 million dollars worth from doing just that and hopping to another country taking all that wealth with them. With that kind of money you could probably buy citizenship in several countries and never come back if you wanted.
I suspect George Soros, after all, currency manipulation is his shtick. That guy has truly harmed millions of people over his evil money destroying schemes as he made himself and his investors rich.
Remember when he screwed over the British pound: https://priceonomics.com/the-t...
Or when he screwed over Thailand: http://www.businessinsider.com...
Or when he was caught illegally insider trading: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
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