Bitcoin in the News : 2019-11 Price

In contrast to the first half of 2019, where five out of six monthly bitcoin price charts showed a rising trend, the November chart was the fourth out of five in the second half of the year to show a falling trend. The only exception was last month's Bitcoin in the News : 2019-10 Price.

My usual technique to understand a chart is to identify periods of high volume and find relevant discussions in the bitcoin / cryptocurrency press. What does the November chart say?

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Index

In November there were more than a half-dozen periods showing jumps in volume. The most significant cluster was:-

2019-11-22 0800 (Drop)

Although there was no corresponding discussion in Cointelegraph's Analysis category, the site's Price Analysis tag had a couple of relevant articles.

2019-11-22: Price Analysis 22/11: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, EOS, BNB, BSV, XLM, TRX • 'Fear gripped the markets on the news that Chinese authorities had raided the offices of the leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance. This negated all the positive effects that had accrued following President Xi Jinping’s endorsement of blockchain technology. Though Binance denied reports of any raids, price action within the sector has remained subdued.'

So the drop was sparked by a rumor? For more about 'President Xi Jinping’s endorsement', see the '2019-10 Price' post.

2019-11-25: Price Analysis 25/11: BTC, ETH, XRP, [...] • 'We believe that the current dip is showing signs of a bear trap.'

So the drop was another skirmish in the ongoing battle between bulls and bears? Plant a rumor and act on the confusion provoked by that rumor. That sounds like market manipulation. Rumors and market manipulation -- why would anyone entrust significant sums to this market?

Although Binance has been mentioned occasionally on this blog, what is it exactly? Wikipedia's Binance page says,

Binance is a global cryptocurrency exchange that provides a platform for trading more than 100 cryptocurrencies. Since early 2018, Binance is considered as the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of trading volume. [...] The company was founded in China but moved its servers and headquarters out of China and into Japan in advance of the Chinese government ban on cryptocurrency trading in September 2017. [...] As of January 2018 it was largest cryptocurrency exchange with a Binance coin (BNB) market capitalization of $1.3 billion. [...] On May 7, 2019, Binance revealed that it had been the victim of a “large scale security breach” in which hackers had stolen 7,000 Bitcoin worth around U.S.$40 million at the time.

The relationship between Binance and 'Binance coin (BNB)' isn't clear to me. BNB is one of the coins listed in the Cointelegraph articles I've quoted above, so it must be significant. I'll look at that another time.