Bitcoin is on a tear today rising in value by over 14% in the last few hours. Earlier this week, on the day Mark Zuckerberg took a shellacking from the US House Financial Services Committee, Bitcoin dumped 8%. While the trip to the House of Representatives Woodshed may have been no fun for Zuckerberg, shares in Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) jumped that day. Go figure.
Inevitably, there is a lot of chatter about Bitcoin and the reasons as to why it has increased today. Words like “buy signals” and “technical bounce” or “oversold” will be used to justify the move.
Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius Network, a large crypto lending platforms, shared the following comment with Crowdfund Insider:
“What goes down must go up: there was no reason for this week’s crash, so why do we need a reason for it to go back up? I do think Zuckerberg’s testimony got a lot of people worried of a bigger retaliation from regulators, but after most of the questioning had nothing to do with cryptocurrency or Libra – and with reports this morning of China premier Xi describing Blockchain as a ‘Rule of law network’ – spirits have risen and the bull is back.”
Of course, the extreme volatility associated with Bitcoin always leads one to wonder how much manipulation is going on.
This is the same concern that has pushed pause on Bitcoin ETFs in the US as the Securities and Exchange Commission has voiced similar concerns. The reality is that any thinly traded security is an target for manipulation. While you can argue that Bitcoin may have sufficient volume so it is not a thinly traded asset, it is largely unregulated in its trading.
Unregulated means a low probability of negative ramifications if you decide to paint the tape a bit. And there are plenty of large holders along with a good number of “exchanges” which lack harmonized pricing that you can argue its an easy game to play. But all this does not really matter if you buy low and sell high. Right?