BIT Releases Report On Crypto Wash Trading

Market manipulation is one issue that has plagued the crypto industry, and several institutional investors stay away from this asset class due to fears of falling victim to such methods.

Cryptocurrency markets are susceptible to manipulation, and there are many ways through which market operators or owners of a crypto asset could manipulate the market.

Wash trading has gone down in the cryptocurrency exchange sector

Wash trading is one of the methods used to manipulate cryptocurrency exchanges.

The practice involves a trader simultaneously buying and selling the same asset to create the impression that a hive of activity surrounds the cryptocurrency.

When a cryptocurrency is experiencing a lot of activity, it gives other traders the idea that there is a demand for it, and this pushes the price of that particular digital asset up.

A recent report from the Blockchain Transparency Institute (BTI) revealed that wash trading has gone down on several of the top crypto exchanges around the world.

The report shows that among the top 40 exchanges, wash trading has gone down by 35.7% over the previous six months.

This is a great sign for the crypto trading community as it shows that legitimacy is increasing on cryptocurrency exchanges, and it will likely attract more individuals to the trade of this asset class.

In partnership with many top exchanges, BTI launched a verification program for crypto trading volumes. The exchanges provide the necessary information that is required to confirm the validity of trading volumes on their platforms.

It is through this collaborative effort that wash trading has gone down across the board, and it is expected that the practice will come to an end over time.

The statistics

The results in the report show that Poloniex, Upbit, Kraken, and Coinbase are some of the exchanges that have managed to stay clear of wash trading.

These exchanges have the least amount of wash trading occurring on their platforms. Bibox and OKEx are among the exchanges that are still experiencing high levels of wash trading.

73% of the trading volumes on these two exchanges is said to have come from wash trading, but due to them having high real trade volumes, they remain in the top 20 of exchanges in the world.

On the list of countries, the US and Japan have the highest number of clean crypto exchanges. This can be attributed to the strict regulatory policies that are in effect in the countries.

These regulations leave little room for market manipulation as they are designed to offer protection to crypto traders in these countries.

Several exchanges have recently been added to the list of platforms under BIT’s watch. Gemini, Indodax, Binance, and Bitflyer have all come under BIT’s surveillance.

According to the report, Binance’s wash trades are below 10%, which places the exchange among those with the least wash trade volumes.