$250 move-up in 3 minutes.
I often notice the following pattern in the Bitcoin price: it's quite stable for hours to days, moving sideways, then suddenly it drops or shoots up in a more or less straight line. After that, it continues moving sideways.
How can that be? I can only think its being manipulated by some whale(s) keepingt he price stable until they need change. If there's a different explanation, I'd like to hear it.
Yep, quite distinctive pattern. It seems to be happening in this year's bear market mostly, I didn't notice it showing before.
whales this, whales that...meh
it's just the market
Exactly, more than likely just market buys and sells, probably on behalf of clients.
[...] How can that be?
Some sell and buy a lot more than others. Even when they use multiple exchanges, it does move the price quite a bit. Exchanges (thankfully) also run 24/7 but at some times of the day or days of the week the liquidity is less than ideal. Manipulation depend on what rules you follow. I do reasonably thrust (but never used) exchanges, as in not allowing buy orders without pony up the fiat and not allowing sell orders without having the coins, and also executing order books in the order of bid/ask price.
Also, there is always a bigger fish, so trying to manipulate the price when you think you are big may backfire when it turns out you are not.
If this is normal market behavior caused by bigger buys and sells, then this same behavior should be seen on other markets like stock markets or forex, right? Are there similar patterns visible? I am just asking genuine question, as I did not examine other assets' markets...
