The Anatomy Of The SBD Pump, And A Potential Pattern
I'm on Steemit since STEEM was trading at $0.1 (that's 10 cents, to be clear) and I've seen many ups and downs. But the recent surge in SBD, started in November last year - and still going on, at the moment - was definitely the most intriguing. Especially given the intrinsic nature of SBD, as a token, which is not really a currency, but merely a debt based smart contract, with a very limited supply.
So I sat down this morning and tried to understand how this all happened. What follows is partially a bed time story, partially an attempt at technical analysis and partially an observation of social engineering (sheesh, I think I might just defined how cryptocurrency trading works, in general, with that phrase - but that's another story).
Anyways, let's start.
First Toe In The Water
On Wednesday, November 22nd, the first attempt at pumping is observed on Bittrex, with a very long wick, on significant volume. Which means somebody tried to see "what if"? This first attempt didn't seem to be very successful, as the price didn't move much. But it may have been very interesting for the ones involved, because, a week and a half later, they tried with the second toe.
Second Toe In The Water
On Saturday, December 2nd, a new attempt is made, this time on much less volume, but with more relevant results. The gains, albeit small, are kept for the next few days and looks like the ground was set for the big move.
The Big Move
On Thursday, December 7th, in only one day, SBD triples in value, going from 24k satoshis to almost 75k satoshis. For the next couple of days, the price struggles a lot, but it stabilizes around 76k satoshis (after briefly reaching 100k satoshis). A very interesting day is Sunday, December 12nd, because it signals "the acceptance" of the new price. It's the longest candle in the chart (meaning the biggest price variation) with both wicks extremely longs (meaning a lot of indecision and ups and downs between buying and selling). In my opinion, this day is the day that "puts a stamp" on SBD as being a valuable token, something "worth to play with".
Getting Down To Business - Part One
On Monday, December 18th, the week starts in full force, with a pump that lasts until Thursday, December 21st. Since that day, until the first day of 2018, price goes steadily down, indicating low interest (holidays, etc)
Getting Down To Business - Part Two
On another Monday, January 1st 2018 (we'll see down the road why these week days are important), another pump is started, but it's short lived, because in a few days, the FUD starts and Bitcoin crash hits. The recovery starts on a Saturday, and then we reach today, when we see the beginning of a new upwards formation.
Let's Look At The Weekdays Again
Wednesday - First toe in the water
Saturday - Second toe in the water
Thursday - The big pump
Monday - The second pump (getting down to business)
Monday - Another pump (keeping it down to business)
Saturday - Cautious correction
last Friday - Pump
I think I start to see a pattern here. Please bear with me, as this is borderline fiction now.
So, the first two attempts were made on very low volume. Just to see if "it works", if the coin "can be moved".
The big pump was made on very big money. Some serious whales colluding was done there, or at least a very big whale poured tons of money into SBD.
Once the token was "established", it attracted more "stable but serious" traders, which included SBD in their weekly trading routine.
It's very important to mention that the first two attempts and the big pump happened in the second part of the week, or even during weekends. That may say: we're not institutional traders, we're playing the markets during weekends, but we do have enough power to move this thing up.
And then, once the token was "established', the pump moved on weekdays. That may say: we're institutional traders and this thing just came under our radar. Let's play it up.
The last correction happened on a weekend too (but this was also mingled with FUD and news about clamping down on crypto) and the current pump started on a Friday.
To put it all together: SBD was probably pumped initially by a group of whales (or a single, very powerful whale), during weekends, until they put it on the agenda of daily traders. From that moment on, SBD was just "business as usual", until FUD came. And we're now seeing a move by which the initial pumpers may bring SBD again on the radar, by sending a message that the coin "is still worth it".
This may be fiction or it may be real. Whatever the reasons, I'm watching this with curiosity and interest and do my best to enjoy it while it lasts.
Disclaimer: I'm not a professional trader and this is not trading advice. Investing in publicly traded assets is risky. Investing in unregulated cryptocurrencies is the mother of risky. Please make your own due diligence and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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Good post and brain storming. I've felt the same way about SBD pumps, although I've always been curious if @blocktrades was somehow intentionally or unintentionally involved at the same time when they were leasing out delegated steem power like candy.
Either way, it's an interesting tail that wags the dog, because having SBD climb way above the price of Steem causes an avalanche of Steemians to trade their SBD for Steem or Steem Power, and what better way to boost ones own business than to take a small hit through the initial pump before getting it all back quickly as people suddenly all start asking "OMG, how can I instantly get my SBD traded into Steem?" And although the Steem/SBD Market is great, blocktrades is instant. That's my own theory, but no matter who was involved it has benefited everyone, and I applaud their efforts.
Whoever is pumping SBD, let them do it more as blogging on Steemit is becoming very rewarding.....
Very interesting post. Thanks for sharing your ideas. The SBD pumping is still a bit of a mystery to me but clearly is significant for a number of reasons. It's a bit sad if it's just become a play thing for speculators but at least we are getting decent post rewards. Now if only our witnesses would adjust the BIAS so the authors here and real users of the platform could make the most of it.
Adjust the BIAS—I'm wondering if that's a hint at a possible solution you have for incentivizing good behavior? :)
No, not this one. BIAS is just a setting to increase supply of SBD in the post rewards. It's a separate issue I've been banging on about for a bit now. That other thing might take a while to come out as I'm researching it's viability this coming week.
It's already adjusted, I'm doing this for a few weeks now.
Yes, I am aware of your settings and I do approve. Maybe I'm just preaching to the choir here or trying to otherwise encourage you to speak up more about it.
Since price of steem is high, and blockchain assumes $1 value for sbd, we are already printing 6x sbd anyways... I'd rather let it play the course. Not sure how printing even more sbd is gonna help anything. Just gonna steer investors to something else's they can pump, not necessarily to steem. Let the people rejoice and be glad that we have $7 sbd. It ain't broke, peg indebted to the blockchain just ain't realistic
Have you read about the effect of the Korean exchange Upbit (powered by Bittrex) listing fiat pairs for STEEM/SBD? Looks like they were listed on November 22, which was the same day as that first pump.
Nope, have a link?
Can't find anything conclusive, but here's a link talking about how the trade volume of SBD was twice that of STEEM on November 22nd on Upbit.
K, thanks for the info anyway, good catch.
I've noticed we see a small pump around 8 - 10 AM CST on Friday and then a bigger pump around 5 - 7 PM CST. Pretty sure this has happened 2 - 3 times in the past couple of months.
Desde que estoy en Steemit e leido un poco para entender este mundo de las cryptos y como se valorizan, en particular sobre el SBD empece a tener la idea de que su precio subiría mas que el STEEM por el simple echo de que se usaba más. Ahora pienso que si fue acertada tal idea.
This is very important. Everyone involved with Steemit/Steem needs to know about this. Then somehow get at least two primary questions answered:
Who is/are the "whales"?
We use that term on Steemit, but I understand you're using it in the broader market sense, or at least how it pertains to cryptocurrency. In other words, it's not necessarily someone associated with Steem or Steemit, or for that matter even friendly to it.
What is/are their motive(s)?
I like your answers, @dragosroua. It would be great if there was someone doing some "advertising" via the markets. "Hey! Look at this! It's a good buy!"
Not so good if it's just someone speculating, or finding a relatively small space to pump and dump, while making millions with smaller price moves. It's worse if they're hoping to break it (scary if that's even possible).
No idea. Also, I don't know if they are Steemit related or just random wealthy people.
Most likely getting rich.
I think people needing to buy in will do it as the price goes up. I'm talking about content creators who care that we just broke the 500 us alexa ranking. This is big news to me and to big content creators looking for outlets.
No matter how big you are in the "real" world - you have to have sp at steemit. Your 1 cent vote means nothing. Those rich guys buy in. I have to make it with my posts and the price increase helps me do that. I hope for much more of the same.
Well let's keep it friendly in here, no need to force anyone to buy Steem Power, you only need a tiny bit of SP to enable posting (because of bandwidth limits), upvotes are not so important...
If someone wants to be a big fish here - they need to buy in. grantcardone jerrybanfield davidpackham. They cannot afford to be here looking like little guys - they already have fans - all bought their stake in the beginning to save time and effort. I'm sure there are many more like that and hopefully many more soon to come for alexa.
I can't assess whether this is good for the community. There is fear and ambiguity associated with the power to move the market centralized on a few.
I just hope that the "movers" are on our side.
Been saying that since September. Every weekend it would go up and then drop by midnight on Sunday.