Quote from: fanbeila on January 28, 2018, 10:54:18 PM

Most of us already know that Bitcoin futures would affect the bitcoin price but has never thought in this way. We just thought that it would make bitcoin crash just like what happened in tulips bubble.Most of the experts have already predicted that Bitcoin futures may lead to bitcoin crash as it happened in tulips.We could also see that there were irregular movements of bitcoin price suddenly reaching ATH of 20,000 dollars and then suddenly falling down and remaining stand still in that price range for more time.It makes us to suspect that price manipulation is being done.

Actually, i don't think we can blame Bitcoin futures for the price plunge as of late. They sort of fell victim themselves to the price manipulation, and their introduction allowed manipulators to earn a little bit more from the ones who were careless enough to invest in this market without thorough consideration. The price crash would likely have happened anyway, with or without Bitcoin futures.

Quote from: xdrpx on January 28, 2018, 05:30:13 PM

I recently read through a post by a user on "Why Bitcoin Futures aren't a conspiracy against Bitcoin" on reddit. It elaborated 3 reasons in detail as to why the current futures market is relatively new and isn't really affecting Bitcoins price (considering many people assume it's the cause of the downward trend in crypto prices this week and the previous). In short the first reason that the user mentioned was about a lack of volume in terms of open contracts on CME and CBOE on the day we noticed the value of Bitcoin plummet. The second reason being the maintenance margin requirements being too high which would discourage manipulation, basically for CME being 43% and CBOE being 40%, and then there's brokerage costs thus reguding leverage as compared to directly investing in Bitcoins. Lastly, the user also described that there were actually higher long positions as compared to short positions by wall street investors and this too were a small proportion of investors.

For my part, I don't think either that Bitcoin futures are a conspiracy against Bitcoin. They are yet another tool for emptying the pockets of novice traders who may be attracted to the exchanges like CME and CBOE by being able to trade "Bitcoin" there, for all their big names and stuff like that.

Quote from: deisik on January 28, 2018, 06:05:06 PM

Manipulation of this kind is certainly possible but not right now. It would make sense if open interest (i.e. the number of futures contracts outstanding) was comparable to volumes traded at major Bitcoin exchanges. As far as I know, open interest is pretty inconsequential so far to make this manipulation economically feasible. You would have to risk too much to gain too little. On the other hand, this explains why seasoned traders will likely stay away from cash-settled Bitcoin futures in the future (pardon the pun). They definitely know this and similar tricks and won't let anyone lay hands on their precious dollars

This is a valid point but I mentioned it in OP, though I agree that the possibility of such manipulation may push away big-time investors from this nascent market. Bitcoin futures without actual delivery look like a solid way of losing money so far.

Thank you guys for all your input!