Bitcoin Forum

MarketCap.cc aims to provide the most accurate, realtime market data for cryptocurrencies without any fake volume
https://bitcoingarden.org/marketcap-cc-aims-to-provide-the-most-accurate-realtime-market-data-for-crypto... (https://bitcoingarden.org/marketcap-cc-aims-to-provide-the-most-accurate-realtime-market-data-for-cryptocurrencies-without-any-fake-volume)

Everybody in the crypto world probably heard of CoinMarketCap by now. But can we just blindly trust the data they present to us? Well, yes but actually no. Over 80%+ of the data CMC shows is collected from exchanges that practice wash trading.

But what is “wash trading”? Wash trading simply explained: I give you $1 in exchange for 1 apple; we write down that trade and add a total volume of $1 and 1 apple. If we continue doing this for an hour we probably tossed around that same apple and dollar 3600 times, creating a total volume of $3600 and 3600 apples. Noticing something? We didn’t actually trade apples worth $3600, we just tossed around 1 apple 3600 times. That is basically wash trading — creating volume between a few parties involving a small amount of money.

So how can you detect wash trading? Well it’s actually harder than you think. BitWise did a great job a few months ago when they wrote down a list of exchanges practicing wash trading based on their analyzing strategy. They also presented that list to the US SEC when they tried to apply for a BTC ETF. But can we 100% trust this list? Not 100%, but it’s a good start....

Lately, there had been a buzz concerning the fake data that CMC is providing to the market, as it is just taking what is supplied into the platform coming from different cryptocurrency exchanges without any filtering and vetting. Maybe CMC don't feel that it is their obligation to check on the data it is receiving and using. I am also concerned on this problem as this is not doing something good for the whole cryptocurrency industry and is one of the many basis why some people described this industry as full of manipulations and fake data. I am happy that there is now a good alternative to the more popular and widely used CMC.

I don't know what kind of process will they do to remove this “wash trading” but if they are getting their data on exchanges we can't see any kind of guarantee that they will really even remove all biases and fake volumes especially when the main sources are datas from exchanges. There's no sure process for eliminating it so I don't expect their data to be 100% true volume at the end, they can't really control it on their end.