$BTC: Former SEC Enforcement Attorney Explains Why “Bitcoin’s Price Is Rising”
TL;DR John Reed Stark, an expert on digital regulatory compliance and former SEC enforcement attorney, believes that the recent surge in the price of Bitcoin is due to market manipulation. He believes there is no real value behind the cryptocurrency and that it operates amid a dangerous regulatory vacuum with no oversight. He also believes Silvergate, a crypto bank, is likely to collapse due to the risks associated with the industry.
On Saturday (14 January 2022), John Reed Stark, an expert on digital regulatory compliance with 15 years of experience as an SEC enforcement attorney, explained why he believes that over the past few days the Bitcoin price has been rising.
The President of John Reed Stark Consulting LLC, which “manages cybersecurity projects and incident response investigations on behalf of both the government and the private sector” seems to believe that the only reason that the $BTC price has been surging in the past few days is due to market manipulation:
Bitcoin’s price is rising for one reason: Market Manipulation. A recent Forbes analysis of 157 crypto exchanges found that 51% of daily bitcoin trading volume being reported was likely bogus (and that was the tip of the iceberg). David Gerard explains: https://t.co/0j3MBw4u6N — John Reed Stark (@JohnReedStark) January 14, 2023
On LinkedIn, he wrote:
“A recent Forbes analysis of 157 crypto exchanges found that 51% of daily bitcoin trading volume being reported was likely bogus (and that was just the tip of the iceberg). https://lnkd.in/gKu77V_Q
“Matched trades, washed trades, sock puppets and other grift artificially inflate bitcoin, which is not only a vague, vacuous, feigned, counterfeit, spurious and nonsensical “digital asset,” but also contains no balance sheet, no cash flow, no revenue, no net income, no losses or any other indicia of monetary value.
“Meanwhile, the bitcoin marketplace operates amid a mammoth and perilous regulatory vacuum of epic proportions with no oversight, no consumer protections, no auditing, no inspections, no examinations, no net capital requirements, no insurance, no licensure — zero, zilch, no US government supervision or surveillance of any kind. https://lnkd.in/gyW8mdAf
“It is axiomatic that bitcoin will always remain mathematical computational blather, which offers no product, no service or any other financial benefit of any kind. It’s not just that the emperor has no clothes, bitcoin traders are betting on the fashion preferences of a poltergeist. It’s all one big hustle.“
A week ago, this is what he wrote about beleaguered crypto bank Silvergate:
“Silvergate is in a tiny club of tiny banks who provide deposit, fund transfer, security and other services to a crypto-ecosystem that not only operates within a mammoth regulatory vacuum but also resides squarely amid widespread grift, chicanery and fraud. To me, Sivergate is akin to The Continental in John Wick and its collapse seems likely.“