Yes, it is possible. With insider trading, which in finance is forbidden because it is unfair (but it happens anyway) and in cryptos I don't even think it can be forbidden, due to technical reasons.
Insider trading in very much alive and as fraudulent as it can be nobody can prevent such thing. Its not forbidden but not encourage at the same time.
Do you see what I see? +173% on coinmarketcap! At first I thought that it's just that the price went crazy on some odd exchange like Etherdelta but no, the current price is accurate on Poloniex and Bittrex! Is it because of this news:
http://fortune.com/2017/10/16/ibm-blockchain-stellar/? I wonder whether it is possible to know about such price changes in advance somehow and not when it's too late to invest.
I guess we really need to check like everyday and see which coins is being pump lately. Maybe the news that you have posted has something to do with the pump lately. IBM is a big company and of course there's a lot of investors who will buy Stellar because it involves one of the biggest IT company in the world. Too bad we are late already.