ChainCatcher message, Bounce Brand responded on the X platform regarding the recent market attention on price fluctuations:"It is important to clarify that the team has not engaged in any form of price manipulation. According to the team's monitoring, over the past few weeks, an unknown entity has accumulated more than 20% of the total supply of AUCTION through continuous on-chain transfers. These on-chain transfer activities and their resulting price impacts have attracted widespread market attention. We have observed that this move has created a significant chain reaction in the market: the spot trading volume of AUCTION on Binance has exceeded $200 million, and the futures market has surged to become the third-largest trading pair, only behind BTC and ETH. On Upbit, the spot trading volume has reached an astonishing level of $500 million, temporarily surpassing the trading scale of Bitcoin.At the same time, we have noticed some unhealthy liquidity conditions in the market: as the primary price discovery market, Binance's hot wallet holdings of AUCTION have fallen below 10% of the total supply. The annualized interest rate in the lending market has climbed above 80%, and the funding rate has consistently maintained an abnormal level of -2%. In response, several exchanges have implemented risk control measures, such as adjusting perpetual contract position limits.To maintain market stability, our team has taken proactive actions: on one hand, we are actively providing liquidity support on multiple exchanges, and on the other hand, we have voluntarily locked up approximately 1.5 million AUCTION tokens from the project’s inventory and team allocation."

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin has reached a plea agreement with U.S. authorities to forfeit $23 million in crypto assets related to market manipulation charges. Court documents cited by Law360 show that Andriunin was involved in Gotbit's actions that caused "decentralized market participants" to suffer financial "harm" as they purchased cryptocurrencies at "fraudulently inflated prices." The founder of Gotbit was extradited to the U.S. at the end of February, after being arrested in Portugal four months earlier.The plea agreement could result in Andriunin avoiding prison time and not having to pay additional fines beyond the forfeiture of assets. However, the court retains final discretion over the terms of the sentencing. The total amount of assets subject to civil forfeiture is $23 million, including stablecoins issued by Tether and Circle, held in four wallets "fully controlled" by Andriunin. Court documents indicate that Andriunin will be subject to three years of supervised release, during which he is strictly prohibited from engaging in any crypto activities.Previously, in November last year, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice charged Gotbit's CEO with orchestrating a large-scale scheme of false trading.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Gotbit founder, 26-year-old Russian citizen Aleksei Andriunin, has been extradited from Portugal to the United States, facing charges of market manipulation and telecommunications fraud, with a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.Andriunin was arrested in Portugal in October 2024 and was indicted by a Boston grand jury. The charges allege that from 2018 to 2024, Gotbit provided "market manipulation services" for cryptocurrency companies, helping clients inflate token trading volumes to raise prices, including for U.S. companies.Department of Justice documents indicate that Gotbit profited tens of millions of dollars from this business, and Andriunin personally transferred millions of dollars into his Binance account. He made his initial court appearance in Boston on Tuesday, with subsequent hearing dates yet to be determined.

ChainCatcher news, on February 24, OX . FUN responded on social media, stating that Jefe, who previously deposited 1 million USDC into the platform, conducted a manipulation attack on the oracle.The user completed the initial deposit of 1 million USDC on February 14, 2025, at 05:38:43, and then from February 14, 2025, 05:46:56 to February 14, 2025, 05:57:06, he began to sell JAILSTOOL in large quantities.He set a limit order of over 600,000 dollars at 0.048, and then set another order at 0.045, while the fair market price was 0.05. He traded a total amount of over 300,000 dollars and pushed the market down to below 0.04, until February 14, 2025, at 06:00:00, when he quickly closed his position around 0.034. This behavior clearly violated the service terms of OX . FUN and harmed the interests of other users of OX FUN, so his funds were frozen.Jefe is trying to exert pressure through social media to obtain his criminal proceeds, but these tactics will not work. The platform has contacted Jefe and proposed a plan to compensate for the social media damage, but he rejected the proposal.

ChainCatcher news, Three Arrows Capital and OXFUN founder Zhu Su reflected on the Pump group phenomenon in the crypto market in 2018 on social media. At that time, some Telegram groups had hundreds of thousands of members, and operators would post information about low market cap tokens (usually listed on exchanges like Bittrex, Poloniex, Binance) to attract group members to buy in en masse. The prices of these tokens could typically rise by 100%-200% in a short period. Even if the prices later fell back, many uninformed external investors still pushed the prices above the initial levels.However, as market interest in this trend declined and operators hoarded too many tokens in advance to sell during the price increase, this model ultimately lost its appeal and gradually came to a halt.

ChainCatcher news, Three Arrows Capital and OXFUN founder Zhu Su reflected on the Pump group phenomenon in the crypto market of 2018 on social media. At that time, some Telegram groups had hundreds of thousands of members, and operators would post information about low market cap tokens (usually listed on exchanges like Bittrex, Poloniex, Binance) to attract group members to buy in en masse. The prices of these tokens could typically rise by 100%-200% in a short period. Even if the prices later fell back, many unsuspecting external investors still pushed the prices above the initial levels.However, as market interest in this trend waned, and operators hoarded too many tokens in advance to sell during the price surge, this model ultimately lost its appeal and gradually came to a halt.

ChainCatcher message, TRON founder Justin Sun posted on X: "XCN (Chain) is currently undergoing serious market manipulation. They are using high leverage and contracts, which could cause serious harm to many exchange users. I advise exchanges to closely monitor this risk. We will report their illegal activities to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for further investigation."

ChainCatcher news, Economic Daily published an article titled "Strict Measures to Root Out Market Manipulation," which points out that departments such as market regulation, communication management, financial supervision, and public security need to strengthen data connectivity and sharing, enhance governance in key areas, and ensure smooth coordination between punishment and enforcement.At the same time, it is essential to make good use of internet technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and blockchain to accurately identify the capital chains and information flows involved in stock price manipulation, strengthen the supervision of the entire trading process, "pull out the radish and bring out the mud," discover and investigate each case, and deter the whole area, allowing those who dare to break the law to reveal their true colors, learn a lesson, and remember the consequences.

ChainCatcher news, according to financefeeds, Coinbase has been sued by Hong Kong-based BiT Global Digital Limited for over $1 billion after deciding to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), accusing it of market manipulation and anti-competitive behavior.BiT Global alleges that Coinbase undermined wBTC to promote its own competing product, cbBTC, resulting in financial losses and diminishing consumer confidence in wBTC. The lawsuit claims violations of the Sherman Act and false statements regarding wBTC's compliance with listing standards, as well as predatory behavior.BiT Global's legal team stated that Coinbase's actions threaten market fairness. The lawsuit seeks over $1 billion in damages and requests injunctive relief to prevent further harm to the wBTC market.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the Solana meme coin HAWK created by influencer Hailey Welch experienced a crash after its launch. HAWK began trading at 4 PM (ET) on Wednesday, with its market cap quickly rising to $400 million, before plummeting over 90% to $37 million.The project team OverHere stated that the token distribution aligns with the tokenomics design, with a 12-month lock-up period for the founding team and a 3-year linear unlocking period, which accounts for only 10% of the total supply.Welch stated on social media that the team has not sold any HAWK tokens and has not given any free tokens to any KOLs. The high transaction fee mechanism was implemented to prevent sniper bots, and the fee rate has now been reduced.

ChainCatcher news, since the implementation of the South Korean "Virtual Asset User Protection Act" six months ago, the Financial Services Commission (FSS) of South Korea is now expanding its investigation into price manipulation to individual investors.Recently, an investor was suspected of price manipulation by the FSS due to frequent short-term trading on a major exchange and is undergoing a related investigation. Although these trades were merely part of day trading activities, due to their suspicious nature, the FSS has requested that the investor prove there was no intent to manipulate the market.With the recent rise in cryptocurrency prices, the FSS is closely analyzing trading patterns and volumes to detect any potential signs of price manipulation.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, former CEO of the crypto platform Celsius, Alex Mashinsky, is facing criminal charges in the United States. His representative lawyer has lost the case and failed to dismiss two charges related to commodity fraud and manipulation of the CEL token price.In documents submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on November 8, Judge John Koeltl ruled that Mashinsky's legal team's arguments for dismissing the charges were "either irrelevant or without merit." The judge denied the motion to dismiss the two charges, leaving seven charges still in the indictment against Mashinsky, with the trial scheduled to begin in January 2025.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Aleksei Andriunin, the founder and CEO of cryptocurrency market maker Gotbit, accusing him of committing wire fraud and conspiracy to manipulate the market. It is reported that Andriunin artificially inflated cryptocurrency trading volumes through "fake trades" from 2018 to 2024 to help projects get listed on CoinMarketCap and cryptocurrency exchanges.Prosecutors pointed out that Andriunin provided fake trading services for meme coins including Robo Inu and Saitama, with illegal proceeds transferred to his personal Binance account. Previously, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Gotbit and three other cryptocurrency companies on October 9, seizing over $25 million in cryptocurrency. If Andriunin is convicted of wire fraud, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Other conspiracy charges could carry a maximum sentence of 5 years.ChainCatcher previously reported that the official Gotbit account posted on X stating: "Our CEO Alex Andryunin has been arrested in Portugal. We currently have no further details, but rest assured that your account with Gotbit is safe. Our goal is to prove the innocence of the company and CEO Alex Andryunin. We are fully prepared to cooperate with the authorities, provide all necessary documents to support the investigation, and quickly resolve this misunderstanding. We will update as soon as more information is available."

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the whale controlling four accounts on Polymarket is a French trader who has spent over $45 million betting on Trump to win the U.S. presidential election.A Polymarket spokesperson stated, "Based on our investigation, we understand that this individual has taken directional positions based on personal views of the election. Furthermore, our investigation to date has not uncovered any information suggesting that this user manipulated or attempted to manipulate the market. The user has agreed not to open any more accounts."