My point is:
It is way (probably multiple times?) easier for the exchanges to create fake BTC liquidity. Because of this their price pressure/manipulation capability is magnitudes higher on pushing BTC price down than on push it up.
Yep, really easy compared to fiat manipulation. But they'll be in trouble if some users withdraw a lot of bitcoin. I believe when this happens they'll likely start selective scamming by disabling withdrawal for some users and that's when they screwed up.
To be honest it's really difficult to find out exactly how many BTC an exchange hold. They can lie, fake it, and so on. Which is why leaving your coins on exchange is terrible.
Yep, I was thinking the same. I mean if sh*t hits the fan they can postpone the Armageddon/reality by blocking/delaying like 10% (the largest, hence probably 50%+volume) withdrawals. Silly KYC (or better said claimed to be KYC) reasons come to mind.
Yes and even if we can see the actual
BTC volume they hold it wouldn't mean much as we still wouldn't see the other side of the balance (how much they owe to users).
All this points to the need of FIAT validating DEXs (if complaint arise) from this topic:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5211326.0