Were they not supposed to be decentralized?

Now, did that not look like a central controlled crash yesterday? And I have to say that I stood back in amazement. What just happened there? Most coins, with a tiny few exceptions, crashed. How on earth is that even possible? That looks like a dark side effect of automated trading. Is that a kind of an articifial intelligence panic attack that spread like a virus? It seems most of these automated trading software is based on the same algorithm. And it infects all the others right away, once 'it' starts to panic sell, dumping for as high as possible. And the rest will follow, just like that. Now that is bizar, in my opinion.

Well, I did not sell anyway and I just sat back in amazement, wondering what actually caused this collective drop in all those values. Was there an alien invasion? Just not to rule out the most weird ideas right away, keep an open mind, no matter how crazy something may seem at first. And I know that some traders do follow others in their trading pattern. But this looked like a funnyfarm trail connection. Shows again that this has nothing to do with science, well at least not in an economic sense. It is even strange to watch it unfold if you do grasp the automation panic and the connected trade trailing. Still think that a lot probably disliked what their automated AI trading software did. Now, we probably do not want that kind of software to controle nuclear weapons, or an army of AI drones, to just name something unrelated...

It was the AI that panicked

Too busy to handle our own trading, it is done on Wallstreet, to manipulate prices also, neural networks that trade at speeds that no human could ever imagine. Or even come close too. So there is the traders that start to analyse the patterns and start to follow trade, go to where the trail leads. In effect this means that whatever AI, or apparent Artificial Intelligence, is trading that seems 'succesfull' will be followed. Most of the time by trading software that uses a kind of AI to find the most profitable trades and trail that to mimic the pattern. Succes can be copied. But what if the AI has a flaw, or it could be manipulated? Or maybe it has a build in flaw: the hidden panic attack? This could be to a big advantage of some. Sell at the right time, ahead of the panic, then buy back right after the crash, knowing that it will pick up after that.

Imagine if you and a few others knew how this would work and at what point it would trigger. That seems kind of far fetched, I know, but hey it is all about money and the power of control that comes with it. So what if you knew? Would you tell the world you just did? A lot of investors lost a lot of their investment and maybe of their clients too. My guess is that if this was somehow controlled, or known up front, then the ones who knew would keep their secret to them selves. Or was it just an AI fault that could not have been forseen upfront? Makes you wonder does it not?

Market correction

Then there is that, the claim that it just was a market correction. Well, one could see it like that, true. And in effect it is, so that claim is always correct. Because it was so massive, collective, over all coins, except a few, it must have been a market correction. Whatever that means, it is the end result after a crash, apparantly. And I know, now I risk getting trashed in the comments with all kinds of responses that have numbers and figures, statistics, charts and so on. But to be honest, I'd rather watch tea-leafs, dice thrown, a crystal ball or that thing where we'd need: three pigs, a bucket and some truffels... Still, we will keep it 'Sub Rosa' how it is used to predict market movements.

But it beats all those Artificial Intelligence and tail trading algo software, hands down. Now where is that tinfoil hat, supposed to make one for @poeticsnake too, ah well, the year just started, got a lot of time to make some.

Kidding aside

To me this crash was totally absurd to watch, we can rule out aliens, but algorithms that come close to what we would know as alien life would be Artificial Intelligence. And I, for one, am sceptic to the way this so called 'AI' is being developed and used. When can we consider it 'aware' and what if 'it' will see 'itself' as far superior to us? And what if 'it' can panic? Or have some kind of 'feelings' at all? For me the apparant orchestrated crypto crash from yesterday is somehow a kind of warning to have an override button, or to start trading manually again. Because it seems that at some point technology is going to dictate our lives and somehow I have the dark feeling that it already is controling too much of our day to day life.

Anyway, have a good one!

artwork 'liberty' cc-by-sa @oaldamster