Cryptocurrency exchange volume: More fake than real?

[whotookmycrypto]

Haven't seen this posted here so just wanted to share.

Recently The Tie released their findings of a study on the extent of volume manipulation by cryptocurrency exchanges. To no one's surprise, they found extensive manipulation amongst many cryptocurrency exchanges.

In total we estimated that 87% of exchanges reported trading volume was potentially suspicious and that 75% of exchanges had some form of suspicious activity occurring on them.

Link to Tweet: https://twitter.com/TheTIEIO/status/1107671178423033858
Single thread for ease of viewing: https://threader.app/thread/1107671178423033858

The Blockchain Transparency Institute also publishes a list of exchanges that are suspected of inflating their trading volumes. Since different methodologies and samples were used, different results should be expected. But just for fun, how do their results compare against those of The Tie's? We used The Tie's "Low Potential Fake Volume" exchanges and compared them to Blockchain Transparency Institute's latest reports and this is what resulted.

Our lay man's conclusion: Pretty close match if you ask us.

Legend

The Tie
1. tick = a Low Potential Fake Volume exchange

BTI
1. tick = not on the exchange advisory list ie. not suspected of manipulating volume.
2. cross = on the exchange advisory list ie. suspected of manipulating volume.
3. blacked out = not covered by BTI research.

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[socks435]

There are many fake volume and sometimes some shitcoins jump too high but after you login on some exchange the price is not the same as what they show in some coin monitoring site like coingecko or coinmarketcap.

So, I decided to trade some coins only in trusted exchanges which is well known here in the forum like Binance.

[kingpin4321]

There are many fake volume and sometimes some shitcoins jump too high but after you login on some exchange the price is not the same as what they show in some coin monitoring site like coingecko or coinmarketcap.

I don't think that's issue is only peculiar to shit coin alone I have had such drama when checking the price of bitcoin on coin market cap it doesn't completely tally with that of an exchange I use(luno to be more precise) the price on coin market cap is always higher

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I don't think that's issue is only peculiar to shit coin alone I have had such drama when checking the price of bitcoin on coin market cap it doesn't completely tally with that of an exchange I use(luno to be more precise) the price on coin market cap is always higher

True, it isn't peculiar to shitcoins only but due to the facts those coins/tokens can easily be manipulated due to low volume, they're usually the target.

Concerning the price on coinmarketcap, the price you see there is an average price from combination of most exchange and not the actual price of the coin/token you're viewing. that's why the price there is always different from most exchange especially small ones like LUNO.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I addressed this report in another thread about it, which you can read here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5122381.msg50243331#msg50243331

Essentially, their methodology is deeply flawed. They took an average trade volume and multiplied that against the average number of site visits, and claimed that that is each exchanges' true volume. This is a completely made up and meaningless equation, which is evidenced by their hilariously enormous spread of results - anything from 0.15% to 1300%.

Yes, a lot of exchanges report fake volume to make themselves seem bigger and more significant than they are, but we can't draw any conclusions from a report with such poor logic.

[Cosbycoin]

It is true that the exchange market in crypto is very much manipulated by the admins of this exchanges but I don't think it is something we have to keep repeating because most of us already knows this and repeating it will just cause FUD in the crypto space which we don't need now.

I think what we should be doing is to enlighten traders to always take their money off exchange after trading every week because we never know what can befall from this exchanges since they have a central wallet and control the private keys.

[Jating]

It's pretty obvious that those exchanges new or even some established one as really faking their volumes. Maybe the question is why they are doing this fraudulent practices?

One reason I see is that to attract noobs investors, because competition is very tough this days, specially that we are still in the bearish cycles.

[palle11]

The fake volume is all about the market competition which involves manipulations. Every product wants to climb on the other product to shine. I think this is simply what this is.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Some Article claims that the percentage is even more, 95% of Reported Bitcoin Trading Volume Is 'Fake'
Fake trade volumes are actually a reality
This is most done by small budding exchanges... I don't think a reputable exchange like binance can do that because they have spoil their reputation through such a simple cheap act.

[BitMaxz]

According to Exchange Advisory List, only 2 exchange sites gives you real volume both Bitfinex and Binance are found that giving real volume compared to other exchange sites.

Look at the recent report below.


Source: https://www.blockchaintransparency.org/

But this is not 100% that both well-known exchanges don't have fake volume this is what Blockchain transparency institute report.
Much better to follow BLOCKCHAIN TRANSPARENCY INSTITUTE or this https://twitter.com/bti___ for the latest report.

[whotookmycrypto]

According to Exchange Advisory List, only 2 exchange sites gives you real volume both Bitfinex and Binance are found that giving real volume compared to other exchange sites.

Look at the recent report below.

But this is not 100% that both well-known exchanges don't have fake volume this is what Blockchain transparency institute report.
Much better to follow BLOCKCHAIN TRANSPARENCY INSTITUTE or this https://twitter.com/bti___ for the latest report.

That is not true. If you scroll further down their page, you would see this:



And if you read it further it would say: Full trusted exchange rankings here (which leads to this link: https://www.blockchaintransparency.org/december-2018-rankings)

[alisafidel58]

I wouldn't be surprised about that. They always do those fake reports so that traders think that there's a lot of trading going on in a specific site. Marketing strategy consists of some lies.

[figmentofmyass]

According to Exchange Advisory List, only 2 exchange sites gives you real volume both Bitfinex and Binance are found that giving real volume compared to other exchange sites.

But this is not 100% that both well-known exchanges don't have fake volume this is what Blockchain transparency institute report.
Much better to follow BLOCKCHAIN TRANSPARENCY INSTITUTE or this https://twitter.com/bti___ for the latest report.

i'm pretty suspicious of these guys. their domain registration is private. nobody knows who they are. they popped up out of nowhere when the USA government starting investigating bitfinex/tether for market manipulation. and what are their results? obviously that bitfinex and the largest tether exchange (binance) are legit and everyone else is faking! lol.....

[henrythebest]

here, i got a article which explain this kind of situation.

https://www.fmz.com/bbs-topic/2488

[SlimShadyMmp]

Most of the suspicious exchanges show some really ridiculous volume and once you login to trade you see a different data from the one you saw before looking I think some exchanges are really manipulating things

[Bitinity]

It is not a strange thing anymore as it is being used as a part of marketing strategy by (usually) new exchanges to attract users. The hard competition between exchanges makes them to do such thing in order to get interest from traders. It is maybe also happen in any other bitcoin/crypto related services.

[riskyron]

If two different analytics name the same cryptoexchanges, they can be trusted, I guess. Those are Binance, Bitfinex, Kraken, Gemini (the largest ones).

[Zadicar]

It is not a strange thing anymore as it is being used as a part of marketing strategy by (usually) new exchanges to attract users. The hard competition between exchanges makes them to do such thing in order to get interest from traders. It is maybe also happen in any other bitcoin/crypto related services.

You are right, this isnt already a surprising thing anymore where exchangers do potentially fake out volumes for the sake of hyping up their exchange to gain users that do easily being hooked out
with huge numbers.
As a trader you should be aware on fake and real ones to avoid such problems further on.

[bravehearth0319]

The faking of volume can't be proven. All accusations of volume faking are merely based on speculations. We can't tell that the market is manipulated unless we.can prove them. This is the effect of decentralized together with the anonymity of the system.

[beerlover]

I wouldn't be surprised about that. They always do those fake reports so that traders think that there's a lot of trading going on in a specific site. Marketing strategy consists of some lies.

Thank God it is called marketing strategy and not scam, if I was to be in their shoes too, I would do the same thing, I know a lot of people will be looking at me as a bad person but these actions of theirs is being influenced by us and I term it as a reprisal for our judgment.

Majority of us tend to judge these exchanges at the early stage of their life when they still have low volumes and we look at them as not qualified enough to hold or handle our trades because of their low volume meanwhile they might have the capacity to do so even with low volumes. Now with that fake report, they have been able to gain the attention of trader who are still performing well on the same platform they believe was not worthy because of low volume.