Gabor Gurbacs, director of Digital Assets Strategy at VanEck, talked about Bitcoin (BTC) and why it is not susceptible to market manipulation. VanEck is an investment management firm that has $47 billion of assets under management. On Twitter, Mr. Gurbacs provided these three reasons related to why Bitcoin is not susceptible to market manipulation.
Gurbacs Believes BTC is not Susceptible to Market Manipulation
Bitcoin is the largest digital asset in the market. According to CoinMarketCap it has a market capitalization of $69.51 billion. This is why there are several investors asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve the first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
During this year, several proposals were presented to the SEC but none of them was approved. However, the market is waiting for the regulatory agency to approve the proposal made by VanEck. A decision is expected to be taken during February 2019.
One of the main reasons why the SEC did not approve previous Bitcoin ETF proposals is because it wants to be sure that Bitcoin markets are not being manipulated. Just to remember, a few months ago, a report showed that Bitcoin was being manipulated during bear markets using the stablecoin Tether(USDT).
The reasons that Gurbacs gave are the following:
- There exist significant surveilled markets with proper AML/KYC
- OTC markets transparent via regulated index provider.
- Bitcoin is a commodity and fits under established CFTC jurisdiction.
https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/status/1068863056363560960
There are several virtual currency exchanges that have been improving their KYC and AML controls. There were several regulatory authorities around the world that started to take the necessary measures to enforce AML checks. Additionally, there were some countries that developed their own self-regulatory framework.
He then mentioned that OTC markets also provide transparency to Bitcoin. He said that an important number of over-the-counter (OTC) markets emerged. This means that Bitcoin cannot be easily manipulated as some people suggest.
In the end, he provided a third reason about why Bitcoin is not so easily affected to manipulations. Bitcoin is currently considered a commodity under the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) jurisdiction.
Bitcoin is currently being traded around $4,000. During this year, it experienced a bear market that severely affected it. In the future, with the approval of an ETF, it might be possible for new investors to enter the market and help Bitcoin reach a new all-time high.
