Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese...
by joe_the_user on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @03:18PM
(#17306137)
Why can't it be both? (Hype cycle and manipulation).
Indeed, any theory of manipulation has to involve a managed hype cycle.
If a small number of people and organizations controlled both bitcoin supply and bitcoin trading and had the ability generate tether, they could "prime the pump" of the hype cycle to get attention and a rise in price. They'd then cash out money from the folks who put dollars into bitcoin. But once the hype cycle turned, they could slow down trading in bitcoin, slow down the cashing-out of tether, and print new tether so that a bust wouldn't be evident in the price, and so that an actual mass exodus from bitcoin into real dollars wouldn't be possible.
Thus bitcoin prices could be sustained at an apparently high level, with even a few upward bumps, for a while.
Indeed, any theory of manipulation has to involve a managed hype cycle.
If a small number of people and organizations controlled both bitcoin supply and bitcoin trading and had the ability generate tether, they could "prime the pump" of the hype cycle to get attention and a rise in price. They'd then cash out money from the folks who put dollars into bitcoin. But once the hype cycle turned, they could slow down trading in bitcoin, slow down the cashing-out of tether, and print new tether so that a bust wouldn't be evident in the price, and so that an actual mass exodus from bitcoin into real dollars wouldn't be possible.
Thus bitcoin prices could be sustained at an apparently high level, with even a few upward bumps, for a while.