I agree, the semi-floor at $1 does make it attractive for a pumper to accumulate around that price, then try to induce a pump.

This is another reason I think it's an intentional pump: the current blockchain-level mechanics for SBD and HBD do encourage it to some extent, even more than a normal low liquidity coin, where the pumper assumes more of a risk that they may experience a loss on coins they picked up in their "accumulate phase" before they initiate a pump.

So, even while the current action by the stabilizer suppresses the potential rewards from a pump quite a bit, I think it is clear we need to further increase the strength of our pegging mechanisms on the high side (most immediately, we do this by increasing the HBD supply being supplied to the stabilizer).

Also, increasing trading liquidity for HBD will discourage such attacks, because of the higher risk entailed to start a pump. But that's more of a long term thing to accomplish.

Here's the spec for the new conversion operation: https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/hive/-/issues/129