Blockchain Transparency Report - Wash trading by exchanges is rife

[gentlemand]

https://www.blockchaintransparency.org

What do you make of this? I'd like to know something about their actual methodology as I can't find mention of it at all. I'm not surprised that many places are doing it. I am surprised at this place claiming some of them are 99% wash trades.

However the places they point out do make sense. I haven't heard of most of the the places they reckon are wash trading, and little mention of others. One of the prime examples is Coinsbank. I genuinely have never come across anyone who uses it or mentions it other than the occasional moan in their dedicated and almost totally dead service thread.

And this is their trusted, or less shit, exchange list - https://www.blockchaintransparency.org/december-2018-rankings

[LeGaulois]

I thought it was something well-known and especially used in high-frequency trading with algorithms. I didn't even know wash trading isn't something allowed in The US, I just found out by looking for. Thinking that way, I didn't see why/how the crypto market would be safe from that.
The list has some know exchanges like Mercatox, Livecoin, HitBTC btw

[BitHodler]

The list has some know exchanges like Mercatox, Livecoin, HitBTC btw

Being known as exchange doesn't mean much nowadays. I'm not a fan of McAfee, but he's totally right about his fight against shitcoin exchanges, where he spent most of his time hammering down on HitBTC.

I honestly don't know how people still use that exchange after their horrible reputation. From the very beginning they selectively scammed people out of their funds by freezing accounts without a single reason.

They ask people 1001 different questions and documents that time on time again are being marked as insufficient till the moment people give up and abandon that exchange with their funds still inside.

[buwaytress]

Hard to classify all wash trading as criminal when some of the newer exchanges actually encouraged and rewarded it, successfully making it (temporarily) to top volume charts and, therefore, gain the exposure. Worth it in the end for a few hundred thousand dollars in tokens? I suppose they'd say so. Surprised Bithumb's not mentioned anywhere. Didn't they supposedly do some token airdrop (generated by trading) resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of wash trading a few months back?

Brief glimpse at the chart doesn't make sense... 100% real trading at Binance and Bitfinex? That's laughable. Like you said, methodology referenced but not really detailed. Like most blockchain "studies" coming out, except for the recent Cambridge one, severely lacking in sound scientific rigour.

[gentlemand]

Surprised Bithumb's not mentioned anywhere. Didn't they supposedly do some token airdrop (generated by trading) resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of wash trading a few months back?

Brief glimpse at the chart doesn't make sense... 100% real trading at Binance and Bitfinex? That's laughable. Like you said, methodology referenced but not really detailed. Like most blockchain "studies" coming out, except for the recent Cambridge one, severely lacking in sound scientific rigour.

I'm assuming the report is pointing towards exchanges themselves doing the wash trading to justify their listing fees and look cool, but that's not totally clear.

On Bithumb at present Bitcoin Gold has 15x more volume against the Won than, er, Bitcoin. Then again Korean traders are stupid and mindless and would trade an old lady's lump of phlegm if it was placed in front of them. Even so that makes little sense.

[Raja_MBZ]

The report doesn't surprise me at all, and I'm glad that someone's actually working to figure out the wash-traders. I personally think that the report has much more accuracy than some of us are anticipating it to be. Why? I've been trading on these exchanges for years, and I've never noticed a "fake trade" being made at Binance/Bitfinex/Bittrex (and these exchanges have a relatively high percentage of real volume according to the report); however, on the other hand, it's almost unbearable to live-trade at Coinbene/RightBTC; believe me, go and try for yourself, until & unless you're going to push that market-buy button, it feels awful to put trade orders at these exchanges. You literally see the completely fake trades on official "completed trades list" of these exchanges, while you never get to see any buy/sell order of those completely washed-out trades. These exchanges (Coinbene/RightBTC) have 1% real volume according to the report, so I do believe it.

[1Referee]

On Bithumb at present Bitcoin Gold has 15x more volume against the Won than, er, Bitcoin. Then again Korean traders are stupid and mindless and would trade an old lady's lump of phlegm if it was placed in front of them. Even so that makes little sense.

It's all related to shitty on-exchange bonus structures switching from coin to coin. It shows that Bithumb today has generated 98% of all BTG volume, which is completely retarded. Asian exchanges also like to mess around with transaction fee mining which stimulates people to intensively wash trade just to make a few pennies.

I only pay attention to exchanges such as Coinbase Pro, Kraken, Bitstamp and Gemini because these are legit fiat entry and exit points with traders thinking twice before attempting to generate tons of fake volumes. Exchanges such as Bithumb and all the other shithole exchanges such as DobiTrade and ZB are an absolute disgrace to this space.

Every so often you see a brand new Asian exchange pop generating hundreds of millions in volume. They aren't even trying to hide malicious activity.