Skip to Content
Blockchain

One Person May Have Driven Bitcoin’s 2013 Jump to $1,000

January 16, 2018

New research suggests that bots were used to manipulate the price of Bitcoin.

The analysis: A Journal of Monetary Economics paper examines how two bots, Markus and Willy, performed suspicious trades on the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange in 2013. The bots appeared to be making regular trades, but didn’t actually own any of the bitcoins they were using to make them.

The findings: The authors write that “trading volume on all exchanges increased greatly on days with suspicious activity.” Not only that, the suspicious trades were “highly correlated with the rise in the price of Bitcoin ... from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months.”

Why it matters: The researchers warn that newer cryptocurrencies may be open to similar kinds of price manipulation. That’s worrying, given the current hype that’s causing banks and nation-states to take notice of cryptocurrencies.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Scientists are finding signals of long covid in blood. They could lead to new treatments.

Faults in a certain part of the immune system might be at the root of some long covid cases, new research suggests.

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.