Cryptofans we adore ya!  The Bart is yet another spooky cool technical pattern,  pretty new but just now smacked into all of our heads with the recent giant Bart kicking in around $10,000 during the American riots this year.   

There are a lot of theories about Barts emerging into Bitcoin graphs.   Many say the Bart shape is clearly yet another whale game.   Barts are designed to clean out margin traders by slamming the prices up or down, then holding steady until the small fry settle in, then reverting the big slam backwards.   Some say the Bart is a sign of Bitcoin showing its true status as a penny stock, with price spreads "so wide we can drive a truck through", and so little liquidity,  that many players can shock the market around on a whim.   Others say typical whale games, squeezing shorts going up, closing out short positions going down.  Here's a classic double Bart reversal from Tripleclutch the reddit guru: 

Our favorite theory?  it's a spoofing game.   Remember the flash crashs  in the stock market caused by high speed trading algo  "FLASH" boys?  We do, from too much time working on ultra low latency trading systems.  Some really smart friends say that there are only a very very few real clients in the market, and 90% of the action is all those firms running around trying to service the real clients or surfing the waves when the real moves are made.  A whole lotta strange scenes in the goldmine always went on just as electronic trading ramped up.  Firms got paid for providing quotes, got paid for buying and selling to "provide liquidity" - or was it just to boost the apparent volume at that exchange?  New electronic exchanges and dark pool crossing networks etc were started, competed,  merged, offered different payments, and had different tricks.  Hell, there was a fun exchange called BATS that grew to be global then merged into the CBOE, we had their swag toy bats everywhere. 

The flash crash kid, Navender Singh,  spoofed the market hard in 2015 - submitting fake trades that he quickly cancelled to game the system, and move the market his way to the tune of 12 million he paid back.   In a Bitcoin worthy story of madness, Navender made another 40 or 50 million "legitimately" but lost it all to investment scams, never buying anything more that a 5,000 beater car, and living and working in his parents' basement in not very stylish Hounslow. 

 He got the horrible penalty of - wait for it - HAVING TO STAY IN HIS MOM'S BASEMENT ANOTHER YEAR.  Which he was gonna do anyway.  The US Feds let him off lightly as he explained everything and everyone he knew. 

Well hey, THE BITCOIN SHE AIN'T REGULATED.   So no feds are going to come knocking no matter what groups of whales get together.  We can submit any orders we want to any exchange we want.  As far as it looks, exchanges can claim about any volume they want, with only intrepid reporters to even notice.   Certainly, most agree the current exchange for kicking off the Bart is BITMEX.  This is no doubt because BITMEX has some features that in some way enable flashers to spoof away - submit orders, smack the market, and yet somehow cancel those orders before real money is spent.  Rinse and repeat, really hard really fast, and the fake volume and fake prices excite the rubes, FOMO or FUD kicks in, and the little guys are set up and knocked down like the demolition of the Kingdome. 

What does it all mean?  We never care that much for technical analysis, timing is too hard within Bitcoin (not relative value) trading.   We think the most recent great big giant BART was at least aided, if not caused, by a flight to Bitcoin given the riots.  But as every pro knows, the trend is your friend, don't fight the market when choosing direction of your intended BART. 

The important positive factors for Bitcoin grow every day - institutional investors creeping slowly in, millennials acceptance, use cases grow.  The negatives slowly fade - Warren Buffet has officially MOed, Government Saks tells their clients that Goldman won't make money if the clients buy bitcoin - excuse me, the client's might not make money if they buy Bitcoin and not from Goldman.   Chase pays a fine for overcharging clients buying bitcoin, but still moving in.    And even the scary threat of governments banning Bitcoin, the big last remaining threat?   We think we just crossed that inflection point.  Do we really think no Chinese own bitcoin now?  Or that no Russians will HODL even if banned?  Venezuela banned Bitcoin, and seemingly caused a surge in Bitcoin use right then.  Humans are persistent and obstinate. 

So, do the BART man.  All you want.   Just zoom out, look at the graph again, ignore that first pump n dump    .https://www.publish0x.com/pro-crypto-party/chinese-politics-caused-the-first-pump-and-dump-save-bitcoin-xjjemym

and never fear, HODL in peace brothers and sisters.  And don't eat any shorts. 

Love, 

Dave

God bless the hive mind of Publish0x -  still by far my most popular Publish0x article -https://www.publish0x.com/hi-i-am-dave-and-i-just-got-hooked-on-crypto/the-mystic-symbology-of-bitcoin-xvlnez . Please send more symbols!!!