Bitcoin in the News : 2019-11 More++

In my previous post, Bitcoin in the News : 2019-11 Price, I looked at one burst of bitcoin activity, noted the explanations offered by analysts, and wondered,

Rumors and market manipulation -- why would anyone entrust significant sums to this market?

For this current followup post, when I started to gather news stories from the same month, the first story that popped up multiple times was on the same theme. The first two occurrences were:-

• 2019-11-04: Did Bitcoin Price Manipulation Fuel 2017 Surge? Study Says Yes (bloomberg.com) • 'Academics update paper that alleges manipulation using Tether'
• 2019-11-04: Study: Single anonymous market manipulator pushed bitcoin to $20,000 (cnbc.com) • 'A forensic study on bitcoin’s 2017 boom has found that nearly the entire rise of the digital currency at the time is attributable to “one large player,” although the market manipulator remains unidentified.'

It happens that I had already mentioned that story -- from the same source -- last year in Bitcoin in the News : 2018-06 More++:-

2018-06-13: Much of bitcoin's 2017 boom was market manipulation, research says (cnbc.com) • 'By tracking Bitfinex transactions, which are recorded on a public ledger, [University of Texas finance professor John Griffin] found that another cryptocurrency, tether. was used to buy bitcoin after large price falls.'

What's the difference between the two incarnations of the research? The first identified possible market manipulation; the second attributed it to a single entity. As I understand it, that entity created money by issuing unbacked tether, then used that funny money to buy bitcoin, thereby fueling its dramatic rise in 2017. If so, the possibilities to do the same by other entities are limitless. No printing press required.

As for the burst of bitcoin activity in the '2019-11 Price' post, I also found multiple stories. The first was:-

• 2019-11-22: Stark China Warning Causes Bitcoin To Suddenly Crash 10% As Other Major Cryptos Nosedive (forbes.com) • 'The Shanghai-based central bank also warned against conflating the country's interest in blockchain with bitcoin and crypto. [...] The bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry has been rocked by reports of Chinese police raids on the offices of major bitcoin and crypto exchanges Binance and Bithumb in the country over the last week -- though both have denied the raids took place.'

And if those two stories weren't bad enough, consider this story that appeared multiple times in another of my Google News interests, botnets:-

• 2019-11-27: Stantinko botnet mines Monero using YouTube (finance.yahoo.com)

Money talks and the bad guys are everywhere. I'm holding my nose as I post this.