There are no coincidences in Finance...

Over my years involved in financial markets I have come to the belief that there are very few coincidences when it comes to finance.

Sure, there are a few outliers here and there, but even those, most of them can be explained by simply following the money.

It's a sad world we live, but it's the truth.

How does this relate to crypto?

The current bitcoin bull market really started ramping up in about October of last year, which was also right about the time that MicroStrategy got involved and started buying bitcoin and putting it on their balance sheet.

However, something else happened right around that time as well...

Bitmex and their founders were criminally charged.

Check out the chart:

(Source:

https://twitter.com/ppogodin/status/1328735044958031873/photo/1

- ppogodin

)

As I mentioned above, there were a couple other significant events going on around this time as well, but it almost looks like the price of bitcoin started rising about the time the suspected manipulation from Bitmex was turned off.

Whether the manipulation occurring on Bitmex was being done by Exchange officials (it probably wasn't), or by those using the exchange, the effects were still the same...

A manipulated bitcoin market.

Where's there's smoke there's fire...

If it was just the chart I posted above as the only circumstantial evidence to go off of, I'd say that it's possible it's not related.

However, there is a major smoking gun as well...

When Bitmex switched their leader board following the criminal charges to only show "traders" that could pass KYC/AML protocols, there was a very interesting name left out...

This guy:

(Source:

https://twitter.com/ppogodin/status/1324523501278154752

- ppogodin

)

That account was one listed in the complaint for market manipulation.

So, the alleged manipulator account is shut down and the price of bitcoin suddenly finds itself in its strongest sustained bull market in years?

Things that make you go hmm...

Where in the world is Arthur Hayes?

No one seems to be talking about the fact that the former CEO of Bitmex, Arthur Hayes disappeared and no one seems to know where he is.

He has been on the lamb ever since he was criminally charged and apparently authorities have been unable to find him.

While I am not convinced he himself was involved in manipulating bitcoin, it's very likely that his platform was being used to manipulate its price.

That being said, there's also the argument to be made that he shouldn't have been criminally charged in the first place...

When other major banks have been charged with money laundering or lax KYC/AML standards, the banks get fined and keep humming along.

More on that in here:

(Source:

https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1358152421659279360/photo/1

- twobitidiot

)

I mean when have you seen Jamie Dimon criminally charged even though his bank has paid billions in fines for AML/KYC violations?

The answer to that is never, yet Arthur Hayes was personally criminal charged in the complaint.

Anyways, like I said above, there's no coincidences in finance and where there's smoke there's usually fire.

Now that Bitmex is much more closely watched it will be interesting to see if the price of bitcoin is able to hold these moves up better than before.

I suspect that it will.

Stay informed my friends.

-Doc