Peter Tchir: 'Of Course Bitcoin Prices are Manipulated'
News that the U.S. Justice Department has begun a probe into whether bitcoin prices were being manipulated has one Forbes contributor saying "Well, duh? Of course they are."
Peter Tchir, the Head of Macro Strategy at Academy Securities writes:
There are allegedly several very large holders of Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies). The concentration of wealth gives them the incentive to push prices higher. In the stock market, anyone holding a large proportion of the outstanding security is subject to additional rules and scrutiny. No such protections exist for cryptocurrency. The person telling you about how great it is, may be very incentivized to see the price go higher. Whether or not this falls under the definition of manipulation that is being investigated, assume it occurs and assume it distorts price.
Tchir also points to miners having a large position and being motivated to manipulate the prices and the fact that regulated markets have been prone to this type of activity.
I am more shocked that anyone would be surprised that manipulation likely occurs in cryptocurrencies and their pricing. I will be interested to see how this investigation can proceed on things that occur on platforms I don't view as regulated exchanges on products that I didn't think were securities.
For now, this is yet another reason to expect cryptocurrencies to continue to drift lower.
BITCOIN PRICE COULD DROP BELOW 2018 RECORD LOW OF $5900
Bitcoin developer and educator Willy Woo has warned Bitcoin prices could soon dip under 2018’s record low of $5,900.
“I think we are gonna go to $5500-5700 next, I can’t see $7000 holding.
“Most likely we’ll balance a bit, then we’ll slide through. Long timeframes here, looking into June for rough timing of this to play out at a best guess.”
CHILEAN BANK REOPENS CRYPTOCURRENTY EXCHANGE ACCOUNTS
Bancoestado, the only public bank in Chile, on Thursday “finalized the first [re]opening of a current account for Cryptomkt, as confirmed by Martín Jofré, founding partner of the cryptocurrency platform,” La Tercera reported. Read More at Bitcoin.com News
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
