ChainCatcher news, according to Fortune magazine, analysts from blockchain companies Chaos Labs and Inca Digital have found rampant wash trading on Polymarket. They discovered signs of fake trading activity on Polymarket, where buying and selling often occurs simultaneously and repeatedly to create the illusion of trading volume and activity. Chaos Labs found that fake trades account for about one-third of the trading volume in the U.S. presidential election market on Polymarket, while Inca Digital found that a significant portion of the market's trading volume may be attributed to potential fake trades.Chaos Labs and Inca Digital found discrepancies between the reported presidential election prediction trading volume on the Polymarket website and on-chain data. Inca stated that the actual trading volume for the presidential election prediction market is about $1.75 billion, while Polymarket reported a figure of $2.7 billion. Chaos Labs attributed this to Polymarket conflating trading shares with dollars.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, research firm Kaiko stated that the wash trading strategy used to enhance the value of the FBI-created token NexFundAI remains a common practice on decentralized exchanges (DEX) and can also be encountered on certain centralized exchanges.In a report on Thursday, Kaiko analysts indicated that their data shows that among over 200,000 assets on Ethereum DEX, many lack utility and are controlled by individuals; some token issuers are establishing short-term liquidity pools on the exchange Uniswap, controlling the liquidity in the pools and engaging in wash trading to attract other investors; once others enter, the issuers sell off the tokens, achieving returns of up to 22 times their initial Ethereum investment within about 10 days; this analysis reveals widespread fraudulent behavior among token issuers, extending beyond the scope of the FBI's NexFundAI investigation.Kaiko noted that certain centralized exchanges, such as HTX and Poloniex, also appear to have wash trading. According to Kaiko, these exchanges have the highest number of assets, with trading volume to liquidity ratios exceeding 100 times, which may be an indication of wash trading.Kaiko also stated, "We can also see that tokens such as meme coins, privacy coins, and low market cap altcoins often exhibit abnormally high trading volume to depth ratios." Taking the meme coin Pepe as an example, Kaiko found that "in 2024, there is a significant divergence in trading volume trends between HTX and other platforms. The PEPE trading volume on HTX remains high, even increasing in July, while the trading volume on most other exchanges has declined."

ChainCatcher news, Andrew Kang, co-founder and partner of the crypto venture capital firm Mechanism Capital, stated on social media: "Most market participants are unaware of the severity of the potential drop in Bitcoin's 4-month volatility range. The closest similar situation we can find is the range from May 2021, when Bitcoin and altcoins also experienced a parabolic rise.The leverage in cryptocurrencies above $50 billion is also close to historical highs (excluding CME), but in this case, our range duration is longer (18 weeks vs. 13 weeks), and there has not yet been extreme liquidation, whereas we experienced several during the bull market from 2020 to 2021.My initial estimate of a $50,000 low may be too conservative, and we might see a more extreme pullback to the $40,000 range. Such a pullback could cause significant damage to the market and may require several months of consolidation/downtrend (recovery period) before a potential upward trend reversal."

ChainCatcher news, June 13, He Yi responded to questions in a Twitter Space.Regarding the previous wash trading incident, Binance co-founder He Yi stated that the product focused more on user-friendliness and was not strict enough. After this experience and lesson, they will raise the current risk control standards and levels; at that time, they noticed the price fluctuations, but the risk control team felt the issue was not significant and let it go; he does not believe that "competitors" are engaging in self-theft.Regarding the listing process, He Yi acknowledged that there are indeed contradictions. If a project with a large FDV is not listed, many people will criticize, "Why isn't Binance listing such a hardcore tech coin?"; for projects with a small FDV, many will complain that Binance is listing projects with so many issues. Any policy has loopholes, and overall it is a process of wits and courage; in the future, Binance hopes to list and incubate projects that allow more entrepreneurs to use blockchain, rather than locking users into airdrops and trading scenarios.Regarding delisting, He Yi mentioned that the review of tokens will consider whether the product is in development, whether there is liquidity, whether there are many negatives, and the regulatory rules of various countries, etc. The recent frequency of delistings has decreased, primarily because the project parties in the bull market have become active (originally thought they would all die), and there is a dedicated department monitoring the listed projects daily. Additionally, he firmly opposes shell buying.He Yi said he writes emails to Zhao Changpeng every day and also needs to write reading notes; his daily life mainly consists of fitness, phone calls (conference calls), and putting children to sleep, which is very monotonous.He Yi said: "We have also listed the so-called 'sister coins' that everyone laughs at, like Hook, claiming that its users are fake; its users are indeed not typical crypto users. We also listed a gaming project that brought in over a million registrations but only had 56 trading users. Binance is trying to see if it can bring about some normal business models, and in the process, it will also endure some ridicule and failures."

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.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute has been accused in a proposed class action lawsuit of helping former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky deceive investors of the now-bankrupt crypto lending company. Wintermute engaged in wash trading and spoofing activities to inflate the price and trading volume of Celsius's token CEL.It is reported that the class allegations are unrelated to Celsius's bankruptcy. Wintermute denied all wrongdoing in a statement to Bloomberg. (Bloomberg)

ChainCatcher news, crypto analyst Loris posted on social media that by analyzing the daily trading volume data of BTC perpetual contracts on the crypto claims and trading platform OPNX, and comparing it with leading trading platforms, it was found that OPNX may have "wash trading."Loris pointed out that the normal volume and price data displayed by leading trading platforms have characteristics such as consistent fluctuations in volume and price, and a stable baseline. In contrast, the volume and price data of OPNX show that the price fluctuations corresponding to the enlarged volume range are minimal, while the price fluctuations in the reduced volume range are quite large. Furthermore, OPNX's daily trading volume has a distinct pattern relative to price fluctuations, leading to the conclusion that OPNX may have "wash trading." (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to the latest data from CryptoSlam, in April, wash trading of NFTs on the Ethereum chain exceeded $635 million, accounting for nearly 60% of all NFT transactions on that blockchain for the month. Analysis indicates that the points mining of the NFT market Blur is the main driving force behind Ethereum NFT wash trading, resulting in $3.4 billion worth of NFT transactions being marked as wash trades so far this year. (Forkast)

ChainCatcher news, DWF Labs Managing Partner Andrei Grachev responded again on social media to questions about token sell-offs and wash trading. In response to the concerns from Floki holders regarding token sell-offs, Andrei Grachev stated that DWF purchased a total of 81 billion tokens and will send all of them to exchanges, but to prove there is no sell-off, they have already sent 57 billion Floki to on-chain wallets.Andrei Grachev mentioned that it is the most foolish choice for market makers to keep tokens in wallets, as their primary job is to create markets, provide depth, and improve order execution, rather than doing nothing. The reason for transferring tokens to exchanges is that market makers must be prepared for emergencies and extreme liquidity situations, having available inventory to achieve 24/7 liquidity purposes.Additionally, market makers and VCs should utilize all legitimate and available solutions to bring maximum value to their portfolio projects and profitability. This does not constitute wash trading. (source link)

ChainCatcher message, since Blur began airdropping its native token BLUR to users on February 14, CryptoSlam has detected at least $577 million worth of wash trading associated with it.According to CryptoSlam data engineer Scott Hawkins, "The detected wash trading shows suspicious behavior, such as reselling NFTs at prices close to the asset's initial transaction within a short period. This behavior indicates that some Blur users have been using different wallets to sell NFTs to themselves in order to gain BLUR and accumulate points for the airdrop. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, billionaire NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban stated in an interview with The Street that wash trading of cryptocurrencies on centralized exchanges could be the trigger for the next "blowup" in the crypto market. "There are allegedly tens of millions of dollars in trading and liquidity tokens with very low utilization rates, and I don't understand how they could have such high liquidity." However, Cuban noted that this is just a prediction and added, "I haven't provided any details to support my guess."Previously reported, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) recently published a report titled "Cryptocurrency Wash Trading." The report used statistical and behavioral patterns to determine which trades are legitimate or illegitimate, studying 29 unregulated exchanges. The conclusion drawn is that, on average, over 70% of the trading volume on these platforms is wash trading. (source link)

According to ChainCatcher news, as reported by Cointelegraph, the "wash trading" paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the United States points out that after studying 29 centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, it was found that on average over 70% of the trading volume on the platforms is wash trading, with 12 "secondary exchanges" even reaching 80% of total trading volume in wash trading. Researchers claim that wash trading has short-term motives and often affects the rankings of exchanges on data and statistics websites like CoinMarketCap, as well as the short-term prices of cryptocurrencies.The exchanges studied in the paper include: Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, HitBTC, Huobi, KuCoin, Liquid, Okex, Poloniex, and Zb. (source link)