It is a work of fiction.  But it is fiction weaved into a plot line around the details that we know to be factual.  In fact it was cited in the Willy Report by the author who opined that it may be very close to the truth:




The story is about a young man who had a secret.  To keep it hidden, he kept digging until the hole was a billion dollars deep.  It is a speculative tale of a great bitcoin theft from MtGox in 2011 and the efforts that this man undertook to fix it.  The tale explains the bitcoin bear market of 2011, the explosive rally of 2013, delayed fiat withdrawals, malled transactions, and a bot named Willy.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zdnop/peter_rs_theory_on_the_collapse_of_mt_gox/

I don't think Willy's purpose was price pumping...

(re-post from another thread)

His final conclusion is probably wrong.
The BTC economy is growing very fast in many parts of the world. Therefore, it is possible to have huge price gains again, and this time they will be "real".

Soo.... the people who bought coins for $900+.... are they royally fucked?

at what level is it "real"? most of the last bull run was inspired by speculation... at what level is speculation healthy, and and what level is utility healthy? doesn't seem like there's enough infrastructure to push bitcoin up right now.. it's still speculation i think.

The bull run in November has provided an enormous amount of Liquidity into the market. As well as opening up Bitcoin to many many new users. Before the bull run the price was around $250.

"Willy" did not push the price up to $1200, it was China, want to know why? When the Chinese Government started cracking down on Bitcoin, the price dropped from around $1200 to $900 rapidly. That means, it was the Chinese selling off that caused the fall, not "Willy", which means that it was China that was responsible for most of the huge price increase in November and not "Willy"...

As Bitcoin adoption continues, the price will increase further as more users find home with it, simple.

It wasn't China alone.  Buy walls fill up when other people are jumping in the market to buy (following each other like a chain reaction), as it is human nature to not want to miss the boat.   So theoretically, if Gox had some sort of bot that was continuously buying, the Chinese could have very well been following these phantom buy orders.

Lots of mom and pop businesses, hipster cafes and tech specialists, but in reality bitcoin transaction numbers are only up 2x compared to 2 years ago

.... it's not even near mainstream yet.
True, but.... Look at one of the biggest stories of the year:
Budweiser will be accepting bitcoin as payment at concession stands AND giving $10 in free bitcoins to all attendees of the Budweiser made in America Festival.
Thread here:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/621674.0;topicseen
Article here:
https://coinreport.net/budweiser-partners-coinbase
"Budweiser has the potential to get a strong digital currency following as their event’s Concert Series runs between April and August, traveling through Wisconsin to California."

So it is undeniable that Bitcoin IS making huge progress.

Bitcoin usage statistics have been growing right in line with bitcoin's market cap, closely adhering to Metcalfe's Law for the value of a network:

It makes perfect sense. MtGox was by far the biggest Exchange and so the others followed their trend. When there was a difference between the Price on Gox and other exchanges. People  just bought on other exchanges and sold on Gox. So the Price balances out on the exchanges over time.
Most of the time the Price on Gox was a bit higher than on other exchanges and it "pulled" other exchanges-price with it.