no, thats how btce always been... waaaay before the shitcoin explosion of 2014... unless you are talking ltc, in which case they always had the volume and best price on ltc, but thats another tin hat altogether.
BTCE has usually had very tiny walls until very recently (like 90 days before halving) you'd see huge 700 BTC ask walls put up right on the bid/ask convergence, which you usually just don't see there. It coincides with the windfall profits from all the Russian IPO scams and them fleeing back to the motherland with the profits.
OR anyone who knows anything knows that a lot of fucking people use btce for a lot of reasons. You are usually spot on with your observations but this shit is clasping at straws.