Not with Tether around.

But many exchanges have been caught doing this already. FTX for example was clearly price fixing by using there own coins to prop up bitcoin.

You'd have a more successful time arguing they were propping up Ethereum.

Even then, what about the dozens if not hundreds of other places to trade for BTC...?

And, to save you and others telling you, some time: exchanges are not the only markets. DEX is a huge factor.

So you believe that globally, all of the thousands of exchanges in various jurisdictions all over the world are colluding, including Fidelity and every other regulated US exchange? What about bitcoin-only companies that don't do any business in altcoins? How are they managing to prop up the price?

It's reasonable to believe the market price is crazy. But it's crazy to believe the market's mere existence is a huge conspiracy theory 15 years in the making. Just call the buyers irrational if you must.

And don't forget FTX was an offshore shitcoin casino that held exactly 0 bitcoin when it collapsed. It's a stretch comparing that to regulated US exchanges.

Over these thousands of exchanges relatively little fiat money actually flows. If the real value of BTC over the total market is $x and I’m Coinbase and I have > $x amount of real cash, I now can completely fix the price and the competition just becomes more parties to scam.

> Over these thousands of exchanges relatively little fiat money actually flows.

citation needed

So you believe Fidelity and Coinbase have been lying in their corporate disclosures for the past 10 years, along with thousands of other companies all over the world, just so they could throw hundreds of billions of dollars of their own money into a black hole, to prop up a trillion-dollar asset class for 10 years running... why? Just for fun?

Yes I believe the exchanges lie, if you think they don’t you obviously don’t follow the news.

It's the opposite, FTX was selling customer BTC to prop up their own coins.

This is also a clear example of how difficult it is to prop up a coin, even relatively illiquid ones like the FTX coins. FTX could sort of prop up their own coins, but not really. They couldn't move prices high enough to keep lenders from recalling capital, and they couldn't support prices at all when there was a confidence crisis before the collapse.