The reason why these manipulations are possible with other assets is that other assets don't actually gain much (if any value) over the years. Bitcoin is doubling in value every year, so shorting it long-term is out of the question.
Maybe, or maybe not. Many would posit that gold and silver would be going up significantly in value were it not for significant price suppression by the financial institutions and possibly governments. Maybe bitcoin is doubling every year because "they" aren't trying to suppress the price - yet. I don't really know either way, but I think it's dangerous to assume that it can't happen with bitcoin.
In any case, the point is just that if everyone holds their crypto on centralized exchanges, then they have all of the power just like with other assets. If it's not shorting then it will be something else. Crypto allows us to not require centralized financial institutions and I really hope all this $GME nonsense opens people's eyes to the need to take advantage of that.
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Gold and Silver are physical assets, so when we create digital derivatives of them this is much easier to manipulate because it's all theoretical. Silver is silver and gold is gold, but crypto is constantly adapting and growing. The Bitcoin of 5 years ago is not the Bitcoin of today.
Bitcoin being a native digital asset puts it in an entirely new class. They are likely going to try to manipulate it pretty hard and I imagine they are going to faceplant directly into concreate.
This is a non sequitor. The physical nature of gold and silver does not make their derivatives any more or less 'theoretical' than Bitcoin derivatives.
What ultimately matters is how much people take personal delivery, and just like with gold and silver, the vast majority of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies remain on exchanges, without people taking them into their own wallets.