Disclaimer: This is the result of research done from the outside only. We have not interviewed anyone internally, nor do we have any solid proof from individual portfolio accounts. We are merely raising the question from a compelling stack of evidence as a result of mounds of comparative analysis for activity in the market for the last 24 hours.
Edits have been made of our own volition to help improve the accuracy of the conjecture surrounding our findings. The data and conclusions still stand that these market movement anomalies originated from Bittrex.com in some fashion. Whether it was an “inside job” or someone executed a manipulation from the outside is not going to be determined by SynQ I/O. We leave that to the journalists.
It has been one very convoluted morning. A large number of alts found themselves in the gutter within the last 24 hours, and very little of the volume was seen moving to BTC as we all expected. The usual pattern during the last BTC hard fork found traders pulling out of alt coins and parking their monetary values into BTC, yet today has been an exception. There hasn’t been a solid reason that gives a clear explanation, but the team at SynQ I/O has a lead. Basically, every single cryptocurrency (alts) listed on Bittrex has fallen in a very similar pattern in relation to one another. Not every coin, but coins that are listed on Bittrex. Between the hours of 1200 and 0900 at UTC-4 on October 8, 2017, a large number of alts experienced a mass dump executed within minutes of each other. Coincidence? We’ll let the charts speak for us.
Figure 1: Comparative Analysis
Our speculation is that an entity at [leveraging] Bittrex made a monumental mistake. Comparative analysis, completed by Syndicate.Enrique, Syndicate.Duy and Syndicate.Evan, shows that only an entity/group with a massive (nearly complete) diversification of alt-coins would have been able to create a uniform sell-off, within the exchange, in the same time frame, for the same percentages.
Bittrex: Whenever fees are assessed from Bittrex, they aren’t transferred away from Bittrex, and are more than likely not swapped to different coins (BTC or other) unilaterally when the fees are acquired. At some point, Bittrex needs to convert these fees into BTC – should they be motivated to stack their BTC bags. Considering this, it’s probable – though still speculative – that this crash was an attempt to automate offsetting their load. The result: [Someone leveraging] Bittrex dumped their bags too quickly, all at the same time. Typically, shielding this kind of activity would be the aim, using a much longer time frame to avoid creating market panic, with the side goal of also keeping prying eyes like ours from being able to dissect the market manipulation performed against investors.
We would like to give Bittrex the Bittrex System [or team / or users within in it] the benefit of the doubt, but this is way too much of a coincidence. No other exchange has experienced these patterns in their assets. Cryptocurrencies that were NOT listed on Bittrex were not affected in the same way. Every other exchange we looked at, Binance, Kraken, Bitstamp, Coinbase, GDAX, Coss, Cryptopia, Yobit – all experienced patterns that were indicative of market reaction stemming from a single source of flash sell-down: Bittrex.
Who else has a portfolio of alt-currencies so diversified that they could sell off volume in uniform succession in a limited time frame?
Argument: People are moving alts to BTC
This is mainly false. Though it is true, it didn’t happen at the scale that matches with the volumes moved from alts to BTC across any other exchange. This wasn’t a market-wide movement like we saw with BIP91 activity between June and July.
Argument: It’s just whales
If it was just whales, you wouldn’t have seen this level of diversification and havoc in every page of Bittrex. This pattern is everywhere, from page 1 through page 7. This pattern doesn’t show up on any other exchange in this fashion. Whales don’t buy LGD, come on…
Again – we are not journalists, we are analysts. We are open to discussion or other raised insights in any of our Social platforms (Facebook, Twitter or Slack).
As of 6/17/2019, the original post is lost to time. An alternative archive can be reached here for cross-reference. ( https://web.archive.org/web/20190528051115/https://thecryptosyndicate.com/opinion-bittrex-anomaly/ )
