まだビットコインなんてトレードしてるの？

面白い記事があったので紹介。

ビットコイン、特定の市場参加者が価格操作か　米大教授ら論文

 

日経新聞オンライン版　2019/11/6 5:11　

ビットコインの価格操作が疑われている=ロイター

【ニューヨーク=関根沙羅】代表的な暗号資産（仮想通貨）ビットコインの価格がある特定の市場参加者によって操作されていた可能性が高いとの指摘が出ている。米テキサス大学のジョン・グリフィン教授と、オハイオ州立大学講師のアミン・シャムス氏がこのほど発表した論文で明らかにした。
グリフィン教授らは、2017年3月から18年3月末にかけてのビットコインと暗号資産「テザー」の価格の動きを分析。交換会社ビットフィネックスに口座を持つある特定の市場参加者がテザーを使ってビットコイン価格を下支えしていたと結論づけた。
分析によると、ビットコインの価格が下落している局面で、特定の市場参加者がテザーを使ってビットコインを大量に購入し、その後ビットコインの価格が上昇するパターンが確認された。
テザーは、1ドル=1テザーの固定レートをうたうドル連動型の暗号資産のひとつ。発行元のテザー社は、テザーは需要に応じて発行され、発行量と同等の米ドルを準備金として保管しているとしている。だが、論文はテザーが需要と関係なく発行され、ビットコインの価格を押し上げるために使われている可能性が高いとしている。
分析対象の17年3月～18年3月末の間にビットコイン価格は約1200ドルから6900ドルに上昇。17年12月には、史上最高水準の2万ドル近くまで上昇する局面もあった。論文によるとこの1年間の上昇のうち約半分はテザーを使った価格操作によるものだった可能性が高いという。
グリフィン氏とシャムス氏は18年6月にもテザーがビットコインの価格操作に使われていると指摘する論文を発表していたが、価格操作が1人の市場参加者によるものであるとは結論づけていなかった。ビットフィネックス社の法務顧問のスチュアート・ヘーグナー氏は「学術的な厳密さに欠け、根本的に欠陥がある」とし論文の内容を否定した。
ビットフィネックス社とテザー社の経営陣は同じ人物らが務めており、米司法省やニューヨーク州の司法長官など複数の当局が準備金の管理や価格操作などの疑いで捜査にあたっている。

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これはロイター発になってるけど、ウォールストリートジャーナルでもニュースになってる。
アメリカでは大きな問題として扱われてるということ。
さて、日本は日経とウォールストリートジャーナルジャパンに小さく要約されて扱われてるだけ。
なんでかなー？？（笑）

できれば下のウォールストリートの原文を読んでください。
なぜか日本語で”はしょられている”部分もしっかり読めます。
説明に使われている価格推移のグラフが転載できませんでしたので、原文にあたってもらえると嬉しいです。

Large Bitcoin Player Manipulated Price Sharply Higher, Study Says

‘Stablecoin’ tether, Bitfinex exchange reportedly used to drive up cryptocurrency’s price in 2017 and 2018

By　Paul Vigna　THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Nov. 4, 2019 5:30 am ET

A single large player manipulated the price of bitcoin as it ran up to a peak of nearly $20,000 two years ago, a new study concludes.
The study reviewed the period between March 2017 and March 2018, when the price of bitcoin soared and its total market value rose to $326 billion. About half of that increase was due to the influence of a manipulation scheme, according to the study’s authors.

They said the unknown manipulator operated from a single account at Bitfinex, the largest cryptocurrency exchange at the time. The manipulator used another cryptocurrency, called tether, to boost demand for bitcoin, leading to the price surge.
It isn’t clear by how much or if the manipulator profited. Bitcoin traded at nearly $9,200 on Sunday.

The study—written by John M. Griffin, a finance professor at the University of Texas with a background in forensics, and Ohio State University finance professor Amin Shams —was accepted for publication by the influential Journal of Finance and will be published online Monday. An earlier version of the study argued tether was being used to manipulate bitcoin prices, but didn’t connect the scheme to one entity.
The paper doesn’t definitively conclude who the manipulator was. But it strongly suggests Bitfinex executives either knew of the scheme or were aiding it.
“If it’s not Bitfinex,” Mr. Griffin said in an interview, “it’s somebody they do business with very frequently.”

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Bitfinex dismissed the study’s findings. Stuart Hoegner, the company’s general counsel, said it “lacks academic rigor” and offered no proof of its claims. “It is the global rise of digital currency that has driven the market’s demand for tether,” he said.
Bitfinex and the company that controls tether, called Tether Ltd., have common ownership and are run by the same executives. Both companies are being investigated for alleged fraud by the Justice Department and the New York Attorney General’s office.
Tether is similar to bitcoin, but with key differences: Bitcoin trades freely, while tether’s value is pegged to the dollar via an asset reserve. For every tether in circulation, there purportedly is $1 in the reserve. This kind of digital currency is called a stablecoin.
If the price of bitcoin was manipulated, this would undermine a key feature of the crypto market, said Mr. Shams. “The promise of a decentralized financial system was that it would be free from the influence of banks and governments,” he said. “Ironically, there are large, new entities that have gained centralized control.”
For their study, the two professors mapped the entire transaction history of bitcoin and tether, a process that involved sifting through more than 200 gigabytes of data. They then traced the movement of the two currencies.
That enabled then to show how tethers moved across various exchanges and were traded for bitcoins. Rather than showing a random pattern that would indicate broad demand, they instead found tethers flowed through tightly clustered pathways—starting with one large account at Bitfinex—indicating control by a single entity.

Tether has become primarily an asset used by crypto exchanges to facilitate trading. About 75% of all bitcoin trading is in exchange for tethers, according to data from research firm CryptoCompare.
According to Tether, it creates new units of tether whenever it gets orders from its customers. But the company has released only limited information to prove reserves exist. In April, the company revealed in a court filing that tether was only 74% backed by reserves.
If new tethers were being created in response to orders, then the price of bitcoin would reflect natural demand.
If tethers were being “printed” without backing, that could lead to artificial demand if they were used to purchase bitcoin. In some ways this is akin to central banks or governments printing money to stimulate economies, often leading to inflation.
The Griffin-Shams study set out to determine whether tethers were being printed in response to user demand. The authors laid out and tested a number of hypotheses to see if Tether’s claims of dollar backing for tethers could be proven or disproved. The study’s conclusion was tether was being printed regardless of customer orders.
One pattern was especially illustrative: The study looked at 95 nonconsecutive hours that comprised the largest percentage of tether dispersals. This showed a consistent pattern: In the three hours before those dispersals, the price of bitcoin was falling. Immediately after the dispersal, the price began rising. Those 95 hours accounted for 59% of bitcoin’s compounded returns between March 2017 and March 2018.
“Even a fairly small amount of capital can manipulate the price of bitcoin,” Prof. Griffin said.
To be sure, the data could have other interpretations: The authors, for instance, didn’t have access to Bitfinex’s and Tether’s bank accounts. That information would show definitively whether the companies were creating new units of tether in response to real customer demand.

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いいんだ。勝ち馬に乗って、おこぼれを預かるのが仮想通貨トレーダーだ！

なるほど素晴らしい心意気です。せいぜい頑張ってね！