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Most Bitcoin Trading Faked by Unregulated Exchanges, Study Finds (wsj.com)
Up to 95% of all reported trading in bitcoin is artificially created by unregulated exchanges, according to a new study [PDF], raising fresh doubts about the nascent market following a steep decline in prices over the past year. From a report: Fraudulent trading volume has dogged cryptocurrency trading for years, but the extent of the market manipulation has been difficult to determine. Bitwise Asset Management said its analysis of trading activity at 81 exchanges over four days in March indicates that the actual market for bitcoin is far smaller than previously thought. The San Francisco-based company submitted its research to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with an application to launch a bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund.
The study, made public Thursday, is an attempt to alleviate the agency's longstanding concerns that a bitcoin ETF would leave investors exposed to fraud and market manipulation. Bitwise's fund, if approved, would be based upon the 5% of trading it considers legitimate, said Matthew Hougan, Bitwise's head of global research. That volume comes from 10 regulated exchanges that can verify that their trading data and customers are real. This slice of the market, he said, is well regulated, transparent and efficient. "I hope everyone sees there is a real market for bitcoin," he said.
The study, made public Thursday, is an attempt to alleviate the agency's longstanding concerns that a bitcoin ETF would leave investors exposed to fraud and market manipulation. Bitwise's fund, if approved, would be based upon the 5% of trading it considers legitimate, said Matthew Hougan, Bitwise's head of global research. That volume comes from 10 regulated exchanges that can verify that their trading data and customers are real. This slice of the market, he said, is well regulated, transparent and efficient. "I hope everyone sees there is a real market for bitcoin," he said.
If what you say is true then no math exists in this universe.
Imaginary numbers are just an extension of previous non-existent numbers. I mean, you can't have -3 cows, right? So by your reasoning negative numbers don't exist. And you can't have fractional cows either (well, not life ones anyway), so rational numbers have to go as well.
Even more worrying is to consider what 1 cow is. Where does the cow end, exactly? Do you consider the smell of a cow to be part of the cow or not? What if that smell mixes with the smell of other cows? How do you singularly define a cow in the real world?
Imaginary numbers allow us to solve problems in this universe so one could say that the universe has no problems with producing problems that are better solved with imaginary numbers. In fact, many things we observe in nature are not solvable without imaginary numbers. Why would a number system that works fantastically well for solving real-world physical phenomena be less real than a number system we use for counting cows? It sounds like a prejudice for counting cows (which seems reasonable from an evolutionary standpoint, but is quite limiting once you start digging into the sort of stuff that really happens in the universe).
The fact is, you can't explain over a century of physics without using imaginary numbers. Basically anything involving waves is better expressed with imaginary numbers.
Imaginary numbers are not less real than any other numbers we have 'constructed'.