5 ms·

Rigged how? Isn't a major point of blockchain its unriggability?

keymone 8y ago
low volume means price can be relatively easily manipulated.
buttcoinslol 8y ago
The price is easily manipulated due to the low liquidity of the BTC market. The blockchain itself is irrelevant when discussing trading/price manipulation.
- kbody 8y ago
  Correction: low liquidity of the majority of cryptocurrencies/tokens. BTC has by far the best liquidity among the cryptocurrencies.
  - snazz 8y ago
    Still very low compared to normal markets, I would think.
    - keymone 8y ago
      so is market cap
    - buttcoinslol 8y ago
      Yes. S&P 500 E-mini futures have a notional value of roughly $147,000 right now, and on average, 1-2 million contracts change hands daily. On average, about 35 billion dollars of SPY, a single S&P 500 ETF is traded daily. It's hard to find accurate BTC average daily volume numbers, but probably somewhere between 1 and 10 billion dollars daily. So yes, bitcoin is an extremely thin market compared to the market depth of 2 extremely liquid assets, both of which pale in comparison to the 550 billion USD daily volume of the treasuries market. BTC does have the tightest bid/ask spread of pretty much any asset that is traded, as a percentage of the asset's value. It's typically a penny to a few cents on the major exchanges, which is a few thousandths of a percent.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    Best != good.
    - keymone 8y ago
      i guess you need to define what "good" means in this context
village-idiot 8y ago
Blockchain is absolutely riggable, that’s what a famed “51% attack” is, but that’s not what we’re talking about. Very little blockchain activity happens “on chain”, and absolutely none of the buying/selling to and from other currencies (including USD) does, because thats not possible. Instead most activity happens on exchanges, which hold onto coins for the user and track account balance in a SQL database just like a traditional exchange. Only if a user moves between exchanges or takes possession of their own coins (a rare occurrence) does an on chain transaction happen, otherwise the rest happens in a SQL database somewhere. These exchanges are absolutely full of straight up fraud, with some analysts claiming up to 95% faked trade volume. Most exchanges trade on their own account, sometimes badly, and the seediest didn’t even require that you create 2 accounts to wash trade. In this case the on chain transactions aren’t rigged, but the price sure is. Note: these are the exchanges that also famously get robbed (or “robbed”) and go bankrupt with their clients money. Examples famously include Quadrigacx, Mt. Gox, and others.
- keymone 8y ago
  > Blockchain is absolutely riggable, that’s what a famed “51% attack” that sounds a bit FUD-dy. 51% allows you to make a double-spend, not "absolutely rig" the blockchain. even with 100% hashrate you won't be able to spend bitcoins without having a private key.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    I’ve had enough negative experiences with you for one life, I’m not going to chat with you just for you to call me a shill again. If you want to bait people into an argument by interpreting their words in bad faith ways, find someone else.
    - dang 8y ago
      Yikes, crossing into personal nastiness is not cool and will get you banned here. Please don't do that! Please do review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If another user broke the guidelines (such as by accusing you of shilling) and we missed it, you're welcome to let us know by emailing hn@ycombinator.com. Or by simply flagging the comment, which usually brings it to a moderator's attention.
ataturk 8y ago
Pump and dump manipulation. Every unscrupulous finance bro flocked to crypto like flies on a cowpie.

low volume means price can be relatively easily manipulated.

The price is easily manipulated due to the low liquidity of the BTC market. The blockchain itself is irrelevant when discussing trading/price manipulation.

kbody 8y ago
Correction: low liquidity of the majority of cryptocurrencies/tokens. BTC has by far the best liquidity among the cryptocurrencies.
- snazz 8y ago
  Still very low compared to normal markets, I would think.
  - keymone 8y ago
    so is market cap
  - buttcoinslol 8y ago
    Yes. S&P 500 E-mini futures have a notional value of roughly $147,000 right now, and on average, 1-2 million contracts change hands daily. On average, about 35 billion dollars of SPY, a single S&P 500 ETF is traded daily. It's hard to find accurate BTC average daily volume numbers, but probably somewhere between 1 and 10 billion dollars daily. So yes, bitcoin is an extremely thin market compared to the market depth of 2 extremely liquid assets, both of which pale in comparison to the 550 billion USD daily volume of the treasuries market. BTC does have the tightest bid/ask spread of pretty much any asset that is traded, as a percentage of the asset's value. It's typically a penny to a few cents on the major exchanges, which is a few thousandths of a percent.
- kortilla 8y ago
  Best != good.
  - keymone 8y ago
    i guess you need to define what "good" means in this context

village-idiot 8y ago

Blockchain is absolutely riggable, that’s what a famed “51% attack” is, but that’s not what we’re talking about. Very little blockchain activity happens “on chain”, and absolutely none of the buying/selling to and from other currencies (including USD) does, because thats not possible. Instead most activity happens on exchanges, which hold onto coins for the user and track account balance in a SQL database just like a traditional exchange. Only if a user moves between exchanges or takes possession of their own coins (a rare occurrence) does an on chain transaction happen, otherwise the rest happens in a SQL database somewhere. These exchanges are absolutely full of straight up fraud, with some analysts claiming up to 95% faked trade volume. Most exchanges trade on their own account, sometimes badly, and the seediest didn’t even require that you create 2 accounts to wash trade. In this case the on chain transactions aren’t rigged, but the price sure is. Note: these are the exchanges that also famously get robbed (or “robbed”) and go bankrupt with their clients money. Examples famously include Quadrigacx, Mt. Gox, and others.

keymone 8y ago
> Blockchain is absolutely riggable, that’s what a famed “51% attack” that sounds a bit FUD-dy. 51% allows you to make a double-spend, not "absolutely rig" the blockchain. even with 100% hashrate you won't be able to spend bitcoins without having a private key.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  I’ve had enough negative experiences with you for one life, I’m not going to chat with you just for you to call me a shill again. If you want to bait people into an argument by interpreting their words in bad faith ways, find someone else.
  - dang 8y ago
    Yikes, crossing into personal nastiness is not cool and will get you banned here. Please don't do that! Please do review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If another user broke the guidelines (such as by accusing you of shilling) and we missed it, you're welcome to let us know by emailing hn@ycombinator.com. Or by simply flagging the comment, which usually brings it to a moderator's attention.

ataturk 8y ago

Pump and dump manipulation. Every unscrupulous finance bro flocked to crypto like flies on a cowpie.