Sort:  

Can someone explain how futures work? Why do futures spike up the price?

let's suppose i'm a whale, with so much money..
tomorrow open the future, for example, so now i'm buying a lot of btc in the market, pushing up the price.. and tomorrow i will open a short position while selling my btc and pushing down the price. double profit.
obviously also vice versa, that is what could happen at the moment..

Great question, I’ll venture guess that if you’re not shorting and you whale, well enough Whales they’ll find a way to increase price, just a guess