marcus_of_augustus
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March 23, 2017, 02:50:32 AM

Isn't a fork very unlikely? The ones in control of such fork should've figured out the uncertainty and bad press involved with such an event. In the end we all want bitcoin to succeed. I call price manipulation at its finest. When the whales have bought back in, the scaling debate will pass.

The miners are natural shorts since they are always selling.  Exactly the same thing happens in any of the durable commodity markets, particularly precious metals, where the miners have sophisticated hedging strategies with complex derivatives plays.  Antminer e.g., can probably maximise it's profits from sales by going short on leverage at medium term tops and then dumping into the market (maybe with some associated FUD spreading).  Basically they are front-running themselves (maybe with some added insider trading climbing on) since they have knowledge of the large sales they are about to be performing as part of their regular business. Eventually their profitability and business model calculations incorporate these derivative bets as it enables them to become hyper-competitive and beat out all rivals to a position of absolute monopoly, since they are centralising all the risks of market moves upon themselves with these outsized derivative bets.

Bitcoin security model is predicated on honest miners in a constant state of untrusting competition (Byzantines General problem).  Anybody advocating or encouraging for collusion amongst the miners is inviting a shitshow since they are going directly against the underlying incentive structure that secures bitcoin's scarcity.  If a majority of bitcoin miners are colluding to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority of bitcoin users then they are ruining the primary source of value that their businesses are founded upon.  I think the colloquial term is "crapping in their feed bowls".

The bitcoin markets have had a faintly bad smelling odour emanating from the mining scene in China for quite some time. I think the full blown aggressive stance now exhibited surrounding the coup (power-grab, w/e) attempt using the 'big block' wedge issue has revealed to all how deep the problem may have already become. Maybe a large short position was taken out around $950 in anticipation of sales that then got unexpectedly bought up by a raging bull market? Now a very large Chinese miner and fabricator is actually under water to the extent that they are very desperate for a much lower price for its business survival? Such a desperate actor will do anything, including threatening to fork bitcoin or otherwise nuclear options, since it is going bankrupt anyway. Maybe it is as simple as someone who overly centralised power, and therefore risk, around themselves miscalculated with derivatives bets and now wants a bailout, again?