The Industry of Illusions: Who Really Profits from Your Losses in the Market? | Cui Prodest

The Industry of Illusions: Who Actually Benefits from “Trends,” “Forecasts,” and Your Losses on Exchanges?

You are being led by the nose. Systematically and professionally.

You read analysis, catch “signals,” scrutinize candlestick charts, and try to guess where the price will go. You believe you are participating in the market. You are mistaken. You are the raw material. You are the liquidity. You are the ultimate risk holder in a giant casino-industry sharpened for the redistribution of your funds into the pockets of the architects of this system.

The past week is a perfect illustration of this theater of the absurd. While retail investors were guessing whether it was a “bull” or a “bear,” the real players had already set their billion-dollar traps. We will not analyze “trends.” We will analyze the mechanics of deception.

Chapter 1. Cui Prodest? Classification of Parasites in the Financial System

Who wins while you lose? The system is built perfectly: profit is made not by the one who is right in the “forecast,” but by the one who controls the infrastructure, the information flow, and creates the volatility itself.

1. Makers and Exchanges (Eternal Winners). It makes absolutely no difference to them whether BTC rises to $100k or falls to $50k. Their income is commissions from every one of your trades, from every liquidation. The higher the volatility and hype (like last week), the greater the trading activity, the more commissions. Profitable: to create conditions for panic and greed.
2. Large Market Makers and Hedge Funds (Insiders and Provocateurs). Those who have access to the dark pool of liquidity, information about large orders, and use derivative instruments to play against the crowd. $1.16 billion in put options for BTC to fall is not a “forecast,” it is a prepared position. Often, they themselves, through media and analysts, hype up the narrative they need so that you, the retail, run in the right direction and “knock out” the levels they need.
3. Issuers of “Junk” Assets and Stablecoins (Counterfeiters). The company Trend Research with a loss of $168 million on ETH? That’s the tip of the iceberg. Such players often issue their tokens, hype them up, and then, like Trend Research, “fix losses,” dumping the asset onto retail. Tether (USDT) with a “Weak” rating from S&P is the cornerstone of the pyramid. Its instability benefits those who can be the first to learn about the problems and escape, leaving the bag holders with a devalued stablecoin.
4. Influencers and Mercenary Analysts (Charlatans). Their business model is selling hope. They live off subscriptions, paid signals, and exchange advertising. Their “forecasts” (be it $100k for BTC or the crash of altcoins) are content, not analysis. The more radical the forecast, the greater the engagement. Their true KPI is not accuracy, but audience reach.

Tatyana Burmagina’s conclusion is absolutely accurate here: information is used “for the personal purposes of individual personalities. In the crypto market, this is taken to the absolute.

Chapter 2. The Farce of “Macro-Analysis”: How They Make a Fool of You with the Fed and Gold

You were told all week: “Bitcoin fell because of the Fed’s tough rhetoric from Powell.” That is a half-truth, serving as a cover.

Manipulation 1: Using Unverifiable Cause-and-Effect Relationships. Yes, the Fed affects liquidity. But the connection “Powell said X → bitcoin fell Y%” is speculative. Analysts establish this connection to create the appearance of understanding chaos. In reality, macro news is a pretext for large players to carry out a pre-planned operation (for example, to crash the price to activate those very put options at $75k).
Manipulation 2: The Myth of the “Safe Haven.” The crash of gold by $7 trillion in 48 hours is a verdict on the entire theory of “protective assets.” It proves that safe assets do not exist, there are only assets that are being manipulated differently at the moment. You were convinced that gold was a wise alternative. While you were transferring funds, others were already taking profits. You were sold a beautiful narrative to lighten your wallet.

This is direct confirmation of Tatyana Burmagina’s thesis about the depravity of long-term forecasts: “Who can guarantee the coincidence of fact and forecast? …There is no guarantee that some 1001st factor will not arise.”  This factor is always the interests of the powers that be.

Chapter 3. The Microchip of Deception: How “Trends” Are Created and Killed Before Your Eyes

Let’s break down the “main trends” of last week as a money extraction operation.

1. “Bearish Bets Reached $1 Billion” (Creating a Pretext). This news is not information, it is a signal for action for the crowd. Psychology: “Large players are expecting a fall, so we need to short or exit.” This is exactly what those who bought the puts want. They need more sellers.
2. “Key BTC Support Under Threat, ETF Outflow” (Inciting Panic). This is the second act. Media and analysts begin to paint apocalyptic scenarios (“path to $75k”). Retail sells in fear. Long liquidations of $1.68 billion occur. Who collects these liquidated assets on the cheap? Those who have fortitude (like MicroStrategy) or the same market makers.
3. “MicroStrategy Continues Accumulation” (Creating Conflict and Hope). This narrative is thrown to the other part of the crowd — hodlers and naive optimists. While one group panics and sells, the other buys, thinking they are “following Saylor.” This ensures a two-way flow of liquidity, which is ideal for exchanges and makers. The system feeds on both fear and greed simultaneously.
4. “Investor Fixes Losses on ETH” (Demonstration of Punishment). The Trend Research story is a demonstrative flogging. It tells the market: “Look, even the big players make mistakes. Your chances are negligible. Better trust the ‘professionals’ (see point 4 of the parasite classification) or just hold onto stablecoins (see Tether).”

Chapter 4. Antithesis: What to Do in a System Sharpened Against You?

Refuse to play by their rules. Tatyana Burmagina’s theses  about working with data are the only reasonable way out.

1. Ignore forecasts. Study the mechanics. Instead of asking “Where will the price go?” ask questions: “Who benefits from the current volatility?”, “Which large options expire this week?”, “Who and why is promoting this narrative in the media?” This shifts the focus from guessing to analyzing motivation.
2. Admit that long-term models in finance are fake. T. Burmagina is right: “Not a single strategy, business plan, or annual budget has met the planned control indicators.” In a world where markets crash by $7 trillion in 48 hours, any 5-10 year calculation is a fairy tale for an investment committee. Focus on short-term trends and factual data (on-chain metrics, real volumes, not open interest on derivatives).
3. Diversify not assets, but principles. Not “part in BTC, part in gold, part in stocks.” That’s a trap. Diversify strategies: part — into absolutely passive, non-tradable hodl without leverage (like Saylor, but without his PR). Part — into your own business, not related to speculation. Part — into liquidity for extreme cases. Remember: stablecoins are not cash, they are obligations of dubious companies.
4. Perceive the exchange as a casino with a commission. When entering it, be aware that you are paying for entertainment. Allocate an amount for this that you are not sorry to lose completely. Do not use leverage — it is a voluntary surrender of yourself into the hands of the exchange’s liquidation mechanism.

Conclusion: Your Freedom Lies in Conscious Refusal.

The crypto market, like the traditional stock market for retail, is not a tool for enrichment, but a complex system for creating the illusion of the possibility of enrichment for the extraction of real money from the population. As long as you believe in “bullish” and “bearish” trends, you remain an extra in their spectacle.

Cui prodest? The answer is now clear: the architects of the casino, the suppliers of illusions, and those who control the flow of “hot” news that makes you press buttons.

The only winning strategy in a losing game is not to play by the imposed rules. Or to play, coldly aware that you are paying for excitement, not for investment. As Tatyana Burmagina writes, we need reliance on facts, adequate conclusions, and operational efficiency, not on mercenary fantasies of analysts and manipulative models. Your main asset is not the cryptocurrency in your portfolio, but independent critical thinking, which cannot be bought for a single satoshi.

Bureau of Control Systems Design