Topic: Market Manipulation by Exchanges? (Read 439 times)

This happens all the time. I was tipped off by a friend via email about a coin called "devcoin" and I did some looking at charts and chatting at an exchange, and it turns out that the reason devcoin's value is so low is because of only a few things:

Everyone on the exchange thought bad about devcoin, because they all talked bad about devcoin. No one buys and sells devcoins regularly, or tells friends about it. They pretty much have they same number of authors every round, and they hurt themselves by hoarding the coin constantly, while a few people sell a chunk of coins hurting the price. Selling coins is fine, but not if the person that buys them is just going to sit on them. And devcoin has very little internet presence. I was hardly able to find a post about it, apart from the official places that it is attached to. The writers don't seem to make their own blogs, and not many people talk about it on Facebook. No group for example.



So, it's not really the exchanges fault, it's just that the coin holders are so greedy they allow the exchange owners to control everything as they sit and wait for changes in the market. When in reality, they should be bringing about the changes in the market themselves. And it's not the exchange owners fault if they work to help themselves.

BTC is the same. Everyone is a hoarder, and scared. Have you seen a Bitcoin millionaire on YouTube? Or seen a picture of anyone on the news? Why isn't there a Mining company that is also a charity that we all donate to?

I wonder how much this has been going on while all the Chinese exchanges have had 0% trading fees. Seems like it would be a big incentive to manipulate volume, potentially sparking a rally by creating the illusion of buying pressure that does not exist.

I did some brief searching and couldn't find anything that addresses this issue in a comprehensive way.

Has anyone quantitatively assessed how exchanges are manipulating the market? If I were an exchange and wanted to get rich quick, this is what I would do. It would probably be hard to detect if done right. For example, an exchange could inflate volume by trading with itself, and thereby make itself appear bigger than it actually is. Also, exchanges are in the best position to profit when a bubble bursts, and this has already happened twice with bitcoin. If an exchange temporarily halted trading, it could first select the most profitable trades and execute them for itself. Furthermore a large exchange could precipitate a bubble by trading with itself and driving up prices.