
The Christmas crypto correction. What really happened - chejazi
http://jamescrypto.com/the-christmas-crypto-correction-what-really-happened/
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jchw
No sources, vague circumstantial accusations. It makes for a good story, but
without more information it's just another theory. Not saying it isn't true,
but it's presented as fact without very much real assurance. I don't doubt
that there's market manipulation, but I have strong personal doubts it's this
nice and tidy. This sounds vaguely like a conspiracy theory at times.

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spunker540
I’m sure there’s plenty of market manipulation but this is definitely more
conspiracy theory than fact. I highly doubt Coinbase as a company was trying
to insider trade on Bitcoin Cash with predatory bots to pump the price. They
make enough money off all their fees, and they already have more users than
Charles Schwab; they’re not some shady exchange based off-shore.

~~~
loopdoend
He never said Coinbase was doing it. It doesn’t matter if Coinbase was
involved - it will looks terrible that it was exposed right when they
launched.

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jsolson
The bit about not being able to cash out over $1k is flat out false.

The order book history from GDAX (I maintain a personal level 3 copy) also
doesn't suggest market pressure at $12k beyond a lot of opportunists (myself
included).

~~~
dsl
Selling bitcoin and cashing out are two different things.

The exchanges will happily let you deposit, buy, and sell, but when you want
that wire transfer there are magically a bunch of hurdles to jump. BTC market
cap is currently $233,616,547,500. The total USD held by reputable exchanges
is probably in the low hundreds of millions.

~~~
jsolson
I transferred in excess of $50k USD out without incident.

Could I have done the same with $1M USD? I have no idea.

The bar is considerably higher than $1k, though, and I'd wager is considerably
higher than most people have to comfortably move around.

~~~
paulhodge
Yeah I also withdrew 5 figures of cash during the crazy period. I have an old
Coinbase account.. I think there are worse delays/limits put on new accounts.

For sure, if everyone did a bank run then there would be a liquidity shortage.
But saying that is wayyy different than what the article said, that most
people couldn't even withdraw $1k.

~~~
TomVDB
But why would there be a liquidity shortage?

It's obvious that this would be the case in a fractional banking system, but
assuming that Gemini or Coinbase aren't complete crooks, through which
mechanism would they not have enough cash on hand?

For each transaction on their exchange, they'd receive money from the buyer
and pass that on to the seller?

~~~
jsolson
You can trade BTC/LTC and BTC/ETH as well, though, and all of the
cryptocurrencies can move into/out of them at will. There are steps they could
take to ensure liquidity in USD, but they're relatively expensive.

I, personally, prefer to keep my dollars in dollars and in an FDIC insured
account.

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AznHisoka
...Meanwhile another cryptocurrency called Ripple basically jumped up 500%
during the past week. I think some people might've been cashing out of Bitcoin
and moving to the next big thing.

~~~
teekno
"next big thing" == "next pump 'n' dump"

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MadSudaca
Sounds plausible, but he didn't give any evidence.

~~~
geetfun
Although the author didn't give any evidence and just a lot of circumstantial
hand waving, the whole idea of market manipulation by the exchanges isn't
something new. eg. the stock market

In the new year, look for a narrow trading range on a day to day or even week
by week basis, with a steady rise in price on relatively low volume. This
could possibly be a tell that things are being manipulated upward.

~~~
the_cat_kittles
back in the "good ol days" of btc-e.com, i feel like the _entire point_ was
pump and dump. it should be expected 100% of the time.

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thisisit
> Obviously, no human would be flooding the books with orders 3X above the
> current market value only a minute after release.

Whenever such claim is made, I wonder if people in cryptocurrency have heard
of the terms - market order, slippage and latency in context of trading.

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empath75
This is like second rate /r/bitcoinmarkets fanfiction. It’s pure speculation
and hand waving.

Although I do find it interesting that dumping $200 million worth of tethers
into the market didn’t move the price.

There is going to be hell to pay whenever the run on tethers starts.

