#zec You never know how many shorts a market maker can liquidate on the futures market when they hold most of a coin’s spot supply. ZEC didn’t rise to 1,695 because that was as high as they could push it; it rose to 1,695 because by then, most of the shorts were already wiped out.
These days, all kinds of altcoin meme coins that are listed only on futures markets can surge 100x simply because retail traders are shorting them.
The old market makers hold the spot supply and can cheaply pump spot liquidity pools on-chain to control the mark price, then use that mark price to manipulate liquidation prices and funding rates in the futures market. They can draw the chart however they like: if there are lots of retail shorts, they just keep pumping; if there are lots of longs, they let it slowly bleed.
So, how many people actually made money on ZEC? If you did, congratulations—you read the market maker’s intentions correctly and ended up on the opposite side from most of us retail traders.
What about this time? Are there still leveraged longs above 1,450 who haven’t been liquidated? If we don’t short, will the old market makers pump it so you can break even?