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Futures Options Feedback: Listeners have their say
From the article: About 40 percent of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 users; at current prices, each may want to sell about half of his or her holdings, says Aaron Brown, former managing director and head of financial markets research at AQR Capital Management. (Brown is a contributor to the Bloomberg Prophets online column.) What's more, the whales can coordinate their moves or preview them to a select few. Many of the large owners have known one another for years and stuck by bitcoin through the early days when it was derided, and they can potentially band together to tank or prop up the market.Because bitcoin is a digital currency and not a security, he says, there's no prohibition against a trade in which a group agrees to buy enough to push the price up and then cashes out in minutes.
Other investors say the whales won't dump their holdings, because they have faith in the long-term potential of the coins. "I believe that it's common sense that these whales that own so much bitcoin and bitcoin cash, they don't want to destroy either one," says Sebastian Kinsman, who lives in Prague and trades coins. But as prices go through the roof, that calculation might change.