IDK, it seems pretty significant to me. Imagine how much of the volume is daytrading garbage... 6k of real buys is probably the net change of 60k+ volume... or 600k+ on Chinese exchanges.
If you constantly remove 1k BTC a day from markets, it will cause upward pressure, of course, but it will take time for it to build. I don't think these 20k are significant, unless buying continues at the same pace for a couple of months.
There are two aspects of large, public buys or sells: the net effect on overall buying/selling, and the psychological effect. Your point re: net effect is correct of course, but the same could then be said (more or less) about the SR auctions (which are also just a week or two of mining subsidies). What it ignores is the substantial effect such orders have on the market in addition to it. Similarly to how Bitstamp's "bearwhale" created panic at first, then, when it turned out there is actually the demand to absorb the offer, created a (minor) rally, I believe that there's a (hard to quantify maybe) market impact of learning that large, presumably private, investors are buying at these prices, more than they did in the months before.
Don't you think that it's not that difficult to mask your buys? Because if you mask them properly, I believe you can avoid the psychological effect.
In principle, yes. That's why I've said for a while now, in opposition to some of the uberbulls, that if
truly big capital wants to enter, they will probably do so off-exchange, by contractually binding large mining operations' outputs to themselves. That might still leave traces in the overall supply situation and have
some effect on on-exchange prices, but probably be less of an impact than if they'd outright buy the same amounts on-exchange.
Anyway, the above is conjecture: it's only to point out why it is possible that big capital is entering a substantial position
without us noticing directly that this is happening.
SecondMarket buys
are publicly visible (or at least: the outcome is visible publicly, we don't know where and how they're getting their orders filled), that much is clear. So the psychological effect (if it exists) does apply.
But maybe I misunderstood the question?
Well, 21 thou in 2-3 weeks (depending if you count the week preceding the first buy) is 1-1.5thou BTC/day.
Considering that current production is "just" 3.6 thou BTC/day, it is a substantial number and it is just one fund.
I don't think that this means higher prices, but it WOULD mean higher prices if this continues unabated or increases in volume and frequency.
I am of the opinion that if you see one fund doing this, then there are more doing the same and, of course, some doing the opposite.