Adam, I had similar idea posted somewhere on the first page of this thread
It makes a lot more sense for big money to move in into bitcoin with slow strategy without effecting market much, and then ride it for interim profits with ability to purchase more at lower rates. The tricky part which is hard to figure out is re-buying what is owed to lenders.
But why borrow 250000 BTC at 7% per week in order to do this?
who borrowed 250000 BTC ?
Is not 7% per week that pirateat40 is paying? As for the 250000 BTC that is approximately what it would take to drive the price down on MtGox to 1.80 USD to 1 BTC.
pirateat40, could you stop another "rally" if one were to ignite right now and buy up above $10?
proudhon, i could take use to 1.80 if i needed to.
he needs all these coins to put put huge ask walls / sell some, when he needs the price to go down
This is very true, but only for the last 7 months. Why? What changed in the market?
Let me explain: pirateat40 is fundamentally a bear. He has however built a business that involves selling BTC to his clients who are bulls. In order to run his business he needs an inventory of BTC estimated from more than one source to be say 250000 BTC. Now like any business he needs to finance his inventory. He has two choices:
1) Borrow USD
2) Borrow BTC
(1) is cheap; however he runs the risk of a sudden drop in the BTC price leaving him with a warehouse full of worthless BTC and 2.5 million USD in debt. Let us remember we are dealing with a bear here. So instead he chooses option (2) and pays a premium rate of 7% a week to borrow BTC. He has now effectively hedged his downward risk. If the price of BTC were to drop to zero tomorrow he can repay his lenders in the now worthless BTC together with the 7% per week interest also denominated in BTC.
Now when a buyer comes along he sells the buyer BTC from his inventory and then goes into the market buys back the sold BTC. He needs to generate say 10% a week in commissions in a flat market in order to pay his lenders and make a profit. This is actually not that hard to do. In a bear market July 2011 - December 2011 he makes an additional profit because he is effectively short the market between selling his BTC from inventory and buying them back in the market in order to replenish his inventory. Now in a bull market is where the situation starts to get interesting. I suspect he can tolerate a small rise in the market, but not a sharp sudden rise so he has to use ask walls in order to moderate a rise in the market and apparently has been doing this quite well for the last 7 months. There is a serious risk here. A long term well capitalized investor who does not mind paying a small premium say 10% - 15% over market comes is out of the blue and buys out his ask wall. Now he is effectively short not only the BTC sold to the client but also the BTC from the now sold ask wall in a rising market. This is when the fun and the real risk of a short squeeze starts.
There is no need here for a ponzi or any kind of money laundering to explain this theory.
By the way I have deduced all of this from pirateat40's own comments, the comments of both his supporters and detractors and correlating these comments with the historical market behavior, as part of my own due diligence on Bitcoin.