'Black Swan' Author Taleb Says Bitcoin Volume Plunge Makes It Easier For Manipulators To Step In: 'This Is How Open Ponzis Implode'

Crypto skeptic and “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb took to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to issue another dire warning about Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC).

What Happened: Taleb shared a chart that showed Bitcoin’s price seeing a broadly upward move since bottoming in 2021. According to the chart, the volume bar, however, has been seeing a downtick since peaking in late 2020 to early 2021.

“When I said pple lost interest in bitcoin, it was based on this: BTC Volume is slowly disappearing, down >85% from the peak,” Taleb said in his post. The decline in volumes makes it easier for manipulators to act, but, at some point, these manipulators will want to hit the exit button, he said.

"This is how Open Ponzis implode," he added.

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Why It's Important: Bitcoin is trading way off its early Nov. 2021 peak of $68,789.63, as crypto-specific and macroeconomic factors weigh down on the apex crypto.

Trading volumes of cryptos in cryptocurrency exchanges fell in the June quarter of 2023, pulling back to the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2019, said a Bloomberg report. The report attributed the anemic volumes to a clampdown by the SEC on the exchanges.

Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN), which is also on regulators’ radar, accounted for 61% of the Bitcoin trading volumes among exchanges registered in the U.S. and 5.83% of the global Bitcoin trading volume, it added.

Regulatory headwinds, along with a lack of clarity on the economic outlook, could be acting as an impediment to a reversal in fortune for the apex crypto.

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Not everyone is as bearish as Taleb. Bitcoin bulls see the heydays of the crypto returning. Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood, for one, is extremely bullish on Bitcoin and expects it to hit $1.48 million by 2030. A bullish trajectory largely hinges on a positive regulatory environment as well as an increase in the use cases for the crypto.

At last check, Bitcoin was trading down 0.12% at $29,432.39, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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