If you believe what you just said about how to make alot of money then you would never have posted anything about that.
Nope, I don't have the money to do anything like that so why not mention it?
You can't choose who you buy from. To roll the price up you'd have to buy up every ask from every other person along the way, (as well as everyone who decided to sell while prices are up) the risk would be astronomical and there wouldn't be much chance to sell them all without dropping the price even further. Anyone buying this much, actually pushing prices up, is in it for the long haul.
Yeah the person would have to fill all the buy orders up to a certain level. That's the point, and it requires a lot of money to do it. But if you push the price up far beyond where most of the volume was (at 19.9 and 20) then turn around and sell that volume at the higher value you pushed it to (24) you make a big chunk of change.
But who is buying? You just filled all the orders in that range. You would have to hope that enough people bid in behind you to rebuy all the BTCs you just picked up. None of the people that just sold are going to buy at a higher value, so you can't count on them. You have to count on a lot of other people stepping in, and it just isn't going to happen.
For example, you fill every order from $18 to $25, costing you half a million US$. Then you try to sell... To who? you filled every order from $18 to $25, the only person selling is back at $17! So maybe some person decides, now that the price went up, I'll buy at $20. This is weird, because just a moment ago he could have bought at $18 but didn't, so why is he buying at $20 now? You'll find a few people who follow the prices up, but not half a million worth. Ultimately, trying to trade on such a short time frame is a zero-sum game. You'll only make money if people willingly lose money by buying higher than they sold for. It simply wouldn't work unless real support for the higher price exists. If support for the higher price exists then the price would have moved in that direction anyway. With such rapid movement, some people on the wrong side will decide to take a small loss, but it won't be as much as you put in. Most people will just sell to you at the inflated higher prices, wait for the prices to move back down and buy. They make a quick buck off of your silly decision, and you pay for it.