this is an interesting market design question: the point is that tapering would require everyone knowing everyone else's depletion clocks. As they are unknown (

this is an interesting market design question: the point is that tapering would require everyone knowing everyone else's depletion clocks. As they are unknown (sanctioned trade, non-public state figures), the opacity is the game itself (that I called game of chicken in other comments). Surely the main players are trying hard to guess each other's numbers by every mean possible