7 ms·

TL;DR: Researchers claim to have proof that the 2013 spike to $1,000 was engineered through fraud. It's unclear how much relevance this has to today's far deep

TL;DR: Researchers claim to have proof that the 2013 spike to $1,000 was engineered through fraud. It's unclear how much relevance this has to today's far deeper markets. Which isn't to say there isn't fraud going on today, as even a casual glance at ICOs will show, just that it's going to be that much harder to manipulate the price. In recent work, we show that the first time Bitcoin reached an exchange rate of more than $1,000, the meteoric rise was driven by fraud (Gandal et al. 2017). We leverage a unique and very detailed dataset to examine suspicious trading activity that occurred over a ten-month period in 2013 on Mt. Gox, the leading Bitcoin currency exchange at the time. We first quantify the extent of the suspicious/fraudulent trading activity and show that it constitutes a large fraction of trading on the days the activity occurred. We then show how this trading activity affected the exchange rates at Mt. Gox and other leading currency exchanges [at the time].

solotronics 9y ago
It's key to note that in the periods where there was market manipulation there was a single exchange that handled over 90% of all Bitcoin trading. Today we have dozens of independent exchanges all around the world.
jameskegel 9y ago
I remember this happening at the same time as Greece, Cyprus and others were on the verge of financial collapse. I heard of citizens moving their money to BTC as an emergency way of retaining what money they had. I'm not sure how widespread that was, but I could imagine 2 or 3 small nations such as those could inflate the cost somewhat, trying to move money in faster than the market could adjust for with supply.
- Nursie 9y ago
  It was not widespread, it was a fantasy.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    However, I do remember there being a lot of coverage in the national press in the UK at the time about stuff like buying bitcoin for use on holiday!
    - kolinko 9y ago
      A lot of coverage, but nobody provided any proof for this happening on any significant scale - aside from anecdotes.
      - arethuza 9y ago
        Definitely - I only remember the coverage because we were going to Greece at the time and my wife (who has no interet in tech) announced one day that she was going to take some Bitcoin with us... Which rather surprised me. I didn't think anyone was actually doing it just a lot of noise generated by journalists who should have known better. Edit: did we see anywhere on Kos allowing you to pay by BTC.... no!
the_cat_kittles 9y ago
im assuming its some kind of pump and dump. im not clear on how this is fraud though? i always thought this was part of the game... (to the moon!)
- asciimo 9y ago
  Mt. Gox didn't defend against transaction malleablity, and they claim this allowed free buys by malicious users. Some say that was just a cover for defrauding their customers. In any event, this was not business as usual for Bitcoin.
  - the_cat_kittles 9y ago
    ah- maybe i should try reading the article :/
tinfoilman 9y ago
It is commonly accepted that the mxGoT willy bot was the cause of the price rise in 2013 from 200 to 1000 dollars. History Gox started as a trading platform in 2010 by McCaleb. He sold this to Mark in 2011. It is rumored that Mark was using customers BTC to expand Gox or/and it was already sold to Mark missing 80,000 BTC. When the price started to go up, Gox was forced to create the willy bot to try and buy back (at a higher price) the bitcoins they missing as they were running a technical fractional reserve). The willy bot drove the price up because it was always buying and in turn defeated its own purpose as it ended up bankrupting MxGot by driving the price so high that they could never hope to recover the missing btc. I wonder if they had not created the bot if they could have made GoT solvant again over a longer time frame. This sort of thing is still happening, Poloneix is rumored to be inside trading, There was a DDOS attack a few days ago which caused price drops and it is rumored the Dossers were shorting the currencys on the exchanges. One of the exchanges had such little liquidity that a whale was able to dump eth yesterday causing a massive price drop on one exchange (which I am prety sure they then used to buy up cheap coins but you never know) Anyone activity trading in Cryptoland is at the mercy of these whales, they are mainpulating price, daily pump and dumps on alts and no regulartion That said, I cannot stop watching it all, i just hlod coins I like the technical merit of Some light reading History of Gox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox Information on McCaleb selling to Mark talk of missing 80k http://www.thedailybeast.com/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heist-in-history-inside-the-implosion-of-mt-gox http://www.thedailybeast.com/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heis... Links on Willybot http://www.coindesk.com/bot-named-willy-did-mt-goxs-automated-trading-pump-bitcoin-price/ http://www.coindesk.com/bot-named-willy-did-mt-goxs-automate... Poloneix insider https://coinidol.com/suspicion-of-insider-trading-at-poloniex/ https://coinidol.com/suspicion-of-insider-trading-at-polonie...
- calpaterson 9y ago
  This is just what stock exchanges were like in the 19th and maybe early 20th centuries. Reading "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" which covers the period ~1890s-1920s I was stunned by how common (relative to now) inside trading, price manipulation and short squeezes were. Most of these are now prohibited which I'm sure doesn't eliminate them but it makes them much less common - short squeezes in particular are now very very rare. BTC markets obviously won't have any restrictions. Amazon link for anyone interested in the book (make sure you get the annotated edition): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0470481595/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0470481595/
oelmekki 9y ago
On the other hand, there is an obsession from humans to find a reason for everything. One of my hobbies is to read financial press to see them find reasons to explain the smallest moves (and these guys are really inventive). On the opposite side, there is Elliott waves theory, which sees market moves as general and predictable growth patterns. This is not science (yet), just empirical observations, although it has remarkable connections to the Fibonacci ratios. I'm not saying what is described in this article is wrong, but we should certainly take this obsessional need for explanation into account when reading such interpretations and consider that growth patterns are also something that could be at play, disregarding of any single individual intervention (we're dealing with statistic level high numbers, after all).
- nradov 9y ago
  Elliott Waves do not meet the scientific criteria to be considered a real theory. They have no predictive power. It's just more after-the-fact rationalizations and attempts by humans to find meaningful patterns in chaos.
  - oelmekki 9y ago
    > Elliott Waves do not meet the scientific criteria to be considered a real theory. It can't be considered a real scientific theory. It doesn't try to either (although, in all fairness, it was indeed the initial intention of Elliott, but he was not a scientist). Saying that it's not a theory is quite weird. Do you mean it's fact, then? > They have no predictive power Yes, it's not enough by itself, it's not a formula that you can apply and get rich. This is something people expect from EWT, and this expectation is the error. Like any technical analysis tool, people can loosely "use" it to see what they want to see. Their fault. > It's just more after-the-fact rationalizations and attempts by humans to find meaningful patterns in chaos While it's true that it's way easier to count correctly waves after they happened, it still provides a framework that allows for more successful trading with it than without it if people don't stop at the first interpretation they think they see and instead build strategies based all the interpretations they can find. I'm always surprised how people easily reject EWT despite all its success, often based on a single failure or on the fact that it wasn't successful for them when they tried it without applying due rigor. My bet here is that people are scared it might be a clue of some yet to be discovered natural law, because it would have huge implications regarding determinism, at least for big enough social groups. People want to be free, badly. EDIT : btw, saying that trying to see patterns in chaos is unscientific is quite funny : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
pmorici 9y ago
This article is kind of old news. It's been generally known for years now that MtGox ran the so called "Willy" bot to buy up BTC and that that contributed to the price rally.
MrFantastic 9y ago
The volume is so slow and most of the market is very naive that tends toward greed. And bitcoin gets a lot of news. 3 weeks ago I was in a bar and 3 groups of people were talking about buying it. Bitcoin seems the perfect market for someone with deep pockets to manipulate.

solotronics 9y ago

It's key to note that in the periods where there was market manipulation there was a single exchange that handled over 90% of all Bitcoin trading. Today we have dozens of independent exchanges all around the world.

jameskegel 9y ago

I remember this happening at the same time as Greece, Cyprus and others were on the verge of financial collapse. I heard of citizens moving their money to BTC as an emergency way of retaining what money they had. I'm not sure how widespread that was, but I could imagine 2 or 3 small nations such as those could inflate the cost somewhat, trying to move money in faster than the market could adjust for with supply.

Nursie 9y ago
It was not widespread, it was a fantasy.
- arethuza 9y ago
  However, I do remember there being a lot of coverage in the national press in the UK at the time about stuff like buying bitcoin for use on holiday!
  - kolinko 9y ago
    A lot of coverage, but nobody provided any proof for this happening on any significant scale - aside from anecdotes.
    - arethuza 9y ago
      Definitely - I only remember the coverage because we were going to Greece at the time and my wife (who has no interet in tech) announced one day that she was going to take some Bitcoin with us... Which rather surprised me. I didn't think anyone was actually doing it just a lot of noise generated by journalists who should have known better. Edit: did we see anywhere on Kos allowing you to pay by BTC.... no!

the_cat_kittles 9y ago

im assuming its some kind of pump and dump. im not clear on how this is fraud though? i always thought this was part of the game... (to the moon!)

asciimo 9y ago
Mt. Gox didn't defend against transaction malleablity, and they claim this allowed free buys by malicious users. Some say that was just a cover for defrauding their customers. In any event, this was not business as usual for Bitcoin.
- the_cat_kittles 9y ago
  ah- maybe i should try reading the article :/

tinfoilman 9y ago

It is commonly accepted that the mxGoT willy bot was the cause of the price rise in 2013 from 200 to 1000 dollars. History Gox started as a trading platform in 2010 by McCaleb. He sold this to Mark in 2011. It is rumored that Mark was using customers BTC to expand Gox or/and it was already sold to Mark missing 80,000 BTC. When the price started to go up, Gox was forced to create the willy bot to try and buy back (at a higher price) the bitcoins they missing as they were running a technical fractional reserve). The willy bot drove the price up because it was always buying and in turn defeated its own purpose as it ended up bankrupting MxGot by driving the price so high that they could never hope to recover the missing btc. I wonder if they had not created the bot if they could have made GoT solvant again over a longer time frame. This sort of thing is still happening, Poloneix is rumored to be inside trading, There was a DDOS attack a few days ago which caused price drops and it is rumored the Dossers were shorting the currencys on the exchanges. One of the exchanges had such little liquidity that a whale was able to dump eth yesterday causing a massive price drop on one exchange (which I am prety sure they then used to buy up cheap coins but you never know) Anyone activity trading in Cryptoland is at the mercy of these whales, they are mainpulating price, daily pump and dumps on alts and no regulartion That said, I cannot stop watching it all, i just hlod coins I like the technical merit of Some light reading History of Gox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox Information on McCaleb selling to Mark talk of missing 80k http://www.thedailybeast.com/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heist-in-history-inside-the-implosion-of-mt-gox http://www.thedailybeast.com/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heis... Links on Willybot http://www.coindesk.com/bot-named-willy-did-mt-goxs-automated-trading-pump-bitcoin-price/ http://www.coindesk.com/bot-named-willy-did-mt-goxs-automate... Poloneix insider https://coinidol.com/suspicion-of-insider-trading-at-poloniex/ https://coinidol.com/suspicion-of-insider-trading-at-polonie...

calpaterson 9y ago
This is just what stock exchanges were like in the 19th and maybe early 20th centuries. Reading "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" which covers the period ~1890s-1920s I was stunned by how common (relative to now) inside trading, price manipulation and short squeezes were. Most of these are now prohibited which I'm sure doesn't eliminate them but it makes them much less common - short squeezes in particular are now very very rare. BTC markets obviously won't have any restrictions. Amazon link for anyone interested in the book (make sure you get the annotated edition): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0470481595/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0470481595/

oelmekki 9y ago

On the other hand, there is an obsession from humans to find a reason for everything. One of my hobbies is to read financial press to see them find reasons to explain the smallest moves (and these guys are really inventive). On the opposite side, there is Elliott waves theory, which sees market moves as general and predictable growth patterns. This is not science (yet), just empirical observations, although it has remarkable connections to the Fibonacci ratios. I'm not saying what is described in this article is wrong, but we should certainly take this obsessional need for explanation into account when reading such interpretations and consider that growth patterns are also something that could be at play, disregarding of any single individual intervention (we're dealing with statistic level high numbers, after all).

nradov 9y ago
Elliott Waves do not meet the scientific criteria to be considered a real theory. They have no predictive power. It's just more after-the-fact rationalizations and attempts by humans to find meaningful patterns in chaos.
- oelmekki 9y ago
  > Elliott Waves do not meet the scientific criteria to be considered a real theory. It can't be considered a real scientific theory. It doesn't try to either (although, in all fairness, it was indeed the initial intention of Elliott, but he was not a scientist). Saying that it's not a theory is quite weird. Do you mean it's fact, then? > They have no predictive power Yes, it's not enough by itself, it's not a formula that you can apply and get rich. This is something people expect from EWT, and this expectation is the error. Like any technical analysis tool, people can loosely "use" it to see what they want to see. Their fault. > It's just more after-the-fact rationalizations and attempts by humans to find meaningful patterns in chaos While it's true that it's way easier to count correctly waves after they happened, it still provides a framework that allows for more successful trading with it than without it if people don't stop at the first interpretation they think they see and instead build strategies based all the interpretations they can find. I'm always surprised how people easily reject EWT despite all its success, often based on a single failure or on the fact that it wasn't successful for them when they tried it without applying due rigor. My bet here is that people are scared it might be a clue of some yet to be discovered natural law, because it would have huge implications regarding determinism, at least for big enough social groups. People want to be free, badly. EDIT : btw, saying that trying to see patterns in chaos is unscientific is quite funny : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

pmorici 9y ago

This article is kind of old news. It's been generally known for years now that MtGox ran the so called "Willy" bot to buy up BTC and that that contributed to the price rally.

MrFantastic 9y ago

The volume is so slow and most of the market is very naive that tends toward greed. And bitcoin gets a lot of news. 3 weeks ago I was in a bar and 3 groups of people were talking about buying it. Bitcoin seems the perfect market for someone with deep pockets to manipulate.