Bitcoin’s 2017 price surge caused by one person?

According to a recent study, Bitcoin’s drastic price surge in 2017 was caused by one cryptocurrency trader. The University of Texas Professor John Griffin and Ohio State Assistant Professor Amin Shams studied Bitcoin transactions between March 2017 and March 2018. This research shows that Bitcoin was manipulated through huge volume trades that increased the price.

The paper, written by the academics, was shared with Bloomberg ahead of its publication in the Journal of Finance said:

This one large player or entity either exhibited clairvoyant market timing or exerted an extremely large price impact on bitcoin that is not observed in aggregate flows from other smaller traders

After the surge of Bitcoin price in 2017 ($20,000), Bitcoin experienced a few crashes in 2018, when the value eventually dropped below $4000. Bitcoin is prone to sudden swings in price, which some industry experts attribute to market manipulation by “Bitcoin whales” that are capable of influencing the price with a single trade.

CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, earlier predicted that Bitcoin will reach 16,000 “soon-ish.” Several other experts think that despite the historical turmoil, Bitcoin will continue to increase in price and might reach up to the 2017-level price. However, a few advocates believe that Bitcoin is a long way from reaching its maximum potential. John McAfee and Tim Draper argue that Bitcoin’s scarcity means that it could grow more than 25 times in value over the upcoming years. 

Draper said:

$250,000 means that bitcoin would then have about a 5% market share of the currency world and I think that may be understating the power of bitcoin.

John McAfee had infamously predicted that Bitcoin will reach $1 million by the end of 2020. 

BTC/USD daily chart

BTC/USD has gone up from $9,200 to $9,226 so far this Friday. BTC/USD found support at the 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA 200) curve and has been trending horizontally in a narrow $400 range.