WSJ: DWF Labs washed over $300 million in trades in 2023, manipulating the prices of YGG and at least six other tokens

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, former employees from Binance revealed that Binance's investigation team found that DWF Labs engaged in wash trading exceeding $300 million in 2023, manipulating the prices of YGG and at least six other tokens, violating the terms of use. After DWF's managing partner Grachev promoted YGG, DWF sold nearly five million tokens in two batches around the price peak, leading to a price collapse. Although Binance's market monitoring team recommended closing DWF's account, the head of Binance's VIP client department and her team questioned this finding and filed a complaint with the company's leadership.

Subsequently, another Binance department responsible for assessing employee compliance conducted its own investigation into the market monitoring team and the evidence they collected, ultimately concluding that there was insufficient evidence that DWF was involved in market manipulation.

A Binance executive stated that wash trading could be accidental self-trading and does not necessarily constitute manipulation. The company leadership ultimately rejected the request to close DWF's account and fired the head of the market monitoring team a week after submitting the report. In the following months, Binance laid off more investigators to cut costs, and some investigators also voluntarily left. Binance executives stated that the size of the investigation team is now roughly the same as it was before.