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(1/2) - 22 February 2020 Although never confirmed by Jed McCaleb, the "tacostand" XRP wallet (rEhKZcz5Ndjm9BzZmmKrtvhXPnSWByssDv) is well-known to belong to him. A quick look at the wallet and its transactions (https://bithomp.com/explorer/rEhKZcz5Ndjm9BzZmmKrtvhXPnSWByssDv) and you will quickly notice that Mr McCaleb manages his funds following a very strict routine. Every morning at 08:02 UTC, 1.7M XRP are sent to another wallet. The so-called wallet, activated by Jed, is then "in charge" of selling the XRP. A rigorous routine is also in place. Wait 09:00 UTC and you will see on the ledger the first "create offer". Offer that is usually selling 1M XRP for USD Bitstamp (IOU). Keep an eye on the XRP:USD.Bitstamp orderbook and you will see that the order is algorithmically managed. The price (exchange rate) of the limit order is, if needed, constantly adjusted. As an example, last Thursday (2020-02-20), the limit order was canceled and re placed 13 times. Jed aims to sell the XRP. The more the offer is at the edge of / at a competitive price on the orderbook, the more chance it has to be filled. However, this Saturday morning, 22 February 2020, Jed's automated bot sold 1.7M XRP for ... $188,456 USD, meaning that it sold at an approximate XRP:USD price of ... 0.11 USD. The price this Saturday morning being around 0.271 USD. The candle below highlights the magnitude of the slippage. Details of the transactions: https://bithomp.com/explorer/E470541E262C6DA171CFCBBD7A115A0F12EADE6B21360DDDC936723093CF6528 https://bithomp.com/explorer/4D705B1F0EC0C4B3DD01198EBDC01345528067F5CC3C280FB16D1C1FED9A8636 https://bithomp.com/explorer/AD536145D6F76EF8E019E897C200F4635DD20ABEE8EC2B20C9140706057C5E5D A trade has two participants, a buyer and a seller. Selling at a discount of 0.59% means that an individual (or group of individuals) made approx 270,000 USD of profit this morning. Luck or Jed's bot generosity is not, as you guess, the explanation of the dramatic event. The attacker (https://bithomp.com/explorer/raBmhBNmYFGe5hJ5Gez2MbpNspewctCAGv) has been preparing his/her/their coup de grâce. Although only successul today, the attacker has been groping for the flaw. Transaction activities of the wallet indicate that the wallet has been active on the XRP:USD.Bitstamp trading pair for at least two months. The wallet sold this morning around 1M XRP, cleaning all the liquidity / depth of the bids of the orderbook, then placed the first killing order (1) that Jed's bot decide to take, then the second killing order (2). Jed's bot also hit the bid for the latter. (1): https://bithomp.com/explorer/FEDC30F932389FC34D126172E26ACD10D79CAD78ACEA360B44B82ABA25868087 (2): https://bithomp.com/explorer/0E3372A2F43154B02100CEF29C941FBC85084EF2BDCA65FA7DCD4ACA709F214E The attacker does not act alone. Sub-wallets 1 (https://bithomp.com/explorer/rHjzw8L2ZBNhLfWw3yv8AY1hf1QYnRMriR) and 2 (https://bithomp.com/explorer/r9ujfsgebDGPEoQP7WFYcVrhEKQZPKVGd7), activated by the one mentionned above, looked like to have specific roles. Mostly create counter orders, allowing front running kind of strategy. To be continued... Many interesting unanswered questions: - What was the specific technical flaw the attacker took advantage of? - What is the profitability of the attack? (taking into account potential front running costs - previous tests / iterations before finding the flaw) - Will the attack repeat itself tomorrow? / Had Jed noticed the event? (2/2) - 25 February 2020 Yes. As you can see below, the attack was repeated every day since the first successful attempt. More active market participants during the week than the weekend has probably a positive impact (less slippage) on Jed's bot loss, although today's data indicate that the attacker had a +10% discount on the XRP bought. When yesterday, on Monday February 24th, many bids populated the orderbook, therefore reducing the potential slippage and the arbitrage gain, the attacker does not seem to be discouraged. The malicious wallet even sent few payments with some interesting memo (here below) to push for more cooperation... Cooperation that was indeed tried, successfully or not, in the past. Look at the memo below regarding a payment sent early January. A payment got some echo (payback, as a sign of approval for cooperation?) on at least one receiver. Please note that the client description below recalls some other events (https://medium.com/@john.cantell/hi-renier-8f887aee027b). John Nash would have been proud. Even in a decentralised exchange the concept of game theory can stand. Memo can support text messages, allowing market participants to communicate with each other and therefore, look at decision not in isolation but as being part of different interactions. As regards Jed's bot flaw, it seems that the algorithm takes decisions based on: the distance to the best ask: replacing the order to make sure that it is at the edge of the ask side the bid ask spread the volume depth of the bids: Jed's bot hits the attacker bids (in all examples), meaning that Jed's bot decides to hit the bid if the slippage is not too important and if a tight spread (mentionned above) is true Note that the above are assumptions and educated guesses. Digging into the transactions is probably the best way to know more about it. I am quite surprised that (my assumption) there is no outside / off ledger element Jed's bot relies on. For instance, the XRP:USD spot price of another (liquid) market, making sure that the decision to place an order on the ledger at x price is not irrational compare to the latter. The best for that being probably the BitMex XRP:USD spot index (https://www.bitmex.com/app/index/.BXRP). Peace.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-13/professor-who-rang-vix-alarm-says-tether-used-to-boost-bitcoin

Just in case you missed it. The results could throw out some interesting details on what exchanges are/aren't doing to help the market.

The article below is very interesting. There are clear parallels to be drawn between the stock market in the 1930s and the unregulated cryptocurrency market now. The price actions described seem conspicuously similar to how I believe these markets are manipulated by whales! http://business.financialpost.com/investing/the-secret-trading-strategy-from-the-1930s-that-hedge-funders-dont-want-you-to-know-about We've had several warnings of impending regulations which don't bode well for most cryptocurrencies. All of a sudden big money starts moving out of the market, effectively tanking all prices. If I were a whale looking to move my money into a pro-regulation cryptocurrency like XRP, I certainly wouldn't be doing it at anything less the lowest possible prices. The price of XRP drops in-line with the rest of the market during this epic retracement, and now some really big buys are popping up on Bitstamp. Just one example below: Given the information in the article above, and the antithetical movement in the price of XRP both in absence, and in the presence, of favourable news - part of me can't help but think that this is the ultimate shake-out so that smart money can position itself more favourably in the face of pending regulation. Thoughts?

Interesting article. Of course I know the MtGox case but I wasn't active in crypto at that time. From a time perspective, was Jed McCaleb still at Mt.Gox around that time or is this after his time? Seriously, no accusement here, want a fair answer. https://cointelegraph.com/news/just-one-person-found-to-have-caused-bitcoins-jump-from-150-to-1000-in-2013

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/researchers-finds-one-person-likely-174057067.html Can anyone here explain what this article is going on about in layman's terms? What I got was that one exchange was hacked, bunch of false trades made, somehow the false trades equated to 600K BTC actually moving to someone's wallet/account, but that also those trades somehow pushed the price from $150 to $1000. It didn't make much sense to me. Assuming those things are true though, is it possible for a single account to do something similar to an exchange for XRP? Like if binance was hacked, could someone convince the exchange to send them xrp on false trades, and also drive the price of XRP on all exchanges one way or another? What kind of security lessons did the exchanges or the blockchain take away from the Mt. Gox fiasco? And isn't the whole point of the POW system to prevent false trades? Is the POS system XRP uses an improvement in security?

John McAfee has been promoting one altcoin a day for the past few days, and every time he does, it pumps the price up to 100% short term. This could essentially be classed as market manipulation, but it also offers a solid chance to make a bit of profit day trading some alts. Dec 21st, Electronium (ETN) https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/943860891119964160 https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/electroneum/#charts Dec 22nd, Burst Coin (BURST) https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/944206175100424193 https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/burst/#charts Dec 23rd, Digibyte (DGB) https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/944555048880746497 https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/digibyte/#charts Dec 24th, Reddcoin (RDD) https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/944929837671690241 https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/reddcoin/#charts Dec 25th, Humaniq (HMQ) https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/945293044252905472 https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/humaniq/#charts Dec 26th, Tron (TRX) https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/945655402276024320 https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tron/#charts He usually announces them around 14:00 GMT, 06:00 PST. Happy trading

My price manipulation post from yesterday sparked a lot of discussions and interesting viewpoints. Some believe the price is manipulated (by Ripple or third parties) others are adamant it is not. Both sides provide compelling points. So where does that leave me? I guess I still would like to hear from Ripple on this subject. Not that I am against price manipulation per se. Manipulation has a negative connotation but if done in a transparent manner by Ripple it could really help attract (long term) investors and subsequent healthy price development and liquidity. March this year, before the Escrow was announced, I posted 'countering the Damocles Effect' in which I argued for the following mechanism I have been thinking about this further and would like to hear your opinions: Ripple sets a price growth percentage per month. Just as an example if you take 8% per month (compounded) that will bring you to 0,60 USD end of year one, 1,52 USD end of year two, 3,83 USD end of year three etc. Distribution of XRP by Ripple is dependent on the actual growth rate. When higher than 8% more XRP is distributed, when lower than 8% less XRP is distributed Part of the proceeds are set aside in a buffer fund to enable taking XRP of the market when required to reach the 8% There are a lot of intricacies, I know, but please hear me out. What would be the effects of such a move? A steady and predictable increasing price development Growing interest by institutional investors and banks to buy XRP contributing to the liquidity depth and robustness of the system (partly making this a self fulfilling prophecy) Loss of interest by short time investors who believe they are entitled to 100% increases in very short time frames. It would also put manipulative whales out of business If XRP is sold by e.g. SBI in line with the agreed upon price development (for FI and private investors) arbitrage will make sure crypto exchanges follow suit. I think in principle this could work. Ripple has the XRP reserves to pull it of. I don't know however if 1 BLN XRP a month (from Escrow) is enough to sustain this system with ever growing demand. So people with expertise in market dynamics would need do some modelling. In any case. More transparancy is key. I think from yesterdays post a lot of people on this forum would appreciate that.

...of silver. Tricked you! Those of you who are all sulky about xrp's lack of moon, should try investing in gold/ silver! Actually, don't...

This is no FUD, but I am FUDDING myself a little.. We've had so many many many good news, partnership announcements, banks going live, many banks boarding and even Bill Gates foundation and.... the price didn't really go up since May this year. Actually it went down...(may is 7 months ago!) at the other end IOTA and Stellar both got ONE partnership announcement and BOOMMMMMM the moon like Apollo! Ripple has confirmed they do keep price low to board more banks and financial institutions. That's why the price keeps coming back everytime. For example after The Bill Gates foundation and the AMEX announcement....it just doesn't really influence the price. We should not be waiting till another bank goes live with xrp, or another fi is on board....or the Escrow (isn't going to affect price, trust me) We should wait untill Ripple releases the price ceiling finally and let go the price stabilisation. Or am I missing something?

Hi Friends, I'm holding Ripples and just a week ago read that the big banks have a lot of options to exercise at an extremely low price. Can this affect Ripple price? Thanks a lot in advance!!

Possible BTC manipulation by Bitfinex.