Coinsquare CEO allegedly ordered its employees to make fake trades

[Kemarit]

According to this, (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dz35q/cryptocurrency-exchange-wash-trading-coinsquare)

Coinsquare CEO himself, Cole Diamond ordered his employees to make fake trades to give the impression that their trading exchanges has indeed lots of liquidity and performing and doing good. There is supposedly a leaked emails, Slack messages.

According to the material, Coinsquare was "wash trading," which means it was automatically buying and selling currency between accounts it controlled. The news provides evidence of a practice that is often suspected in the cryptocurrency world but rarely proven, and can draw attention from regulators.

"Turn it back on," one seemingly angry March 2019 Slack message from Coinsquare CEO Cole Diamond to other employees of the company read, referring to the code that managed internal trades after an employee switched it off, fearing retaliation from regulators.

We all know that this has been practice by low-tier exchanges, but we don't have proof yet. Tried to search this supposedly emails and messages to really see first hand, but so far can't find any.

And if this is true then its pretty damning evidence against Coinsquare and we will see how OSC (Ontario Securities Commission) will do, what are the punishments etc.

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[mk4]

I'm really not surprised that some exchanges do this in my opinion(along with wash trading). If you sort the exchanges on Coinmarketcap through 24hr volumes, there are a good number of unknown exchanges near the top.

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

[btc_angela]

But we need to see the smoking gun here, yes we've heard this wash and fake volumes from exchanges in the past, even Chinese top exchanges have been accused in the past if you guys remember. But we need to see the evidences and see how it sits with the definition of wash trading, if there's such thing in cryptos (clear definition).

[pooya87]

the story makes no sense to me. why would he need to tell anyone including his employees to make fake trade in his platform when he can do what all the other exchanges have been doing which is create a bot that creates as many trades as he wants to increase the shown volume? or simply do what shittier exchanges like Yobit do and bump the volume manually

if there are such Emails then the owner is either a super noob or it may simply be asking them to use the exchange to get feedback or find bugs or something like that.

[bbc.reporter]

I'm really not surprised that some exchanges do this in my opinion(along with wash trading). If you sort the exchanges on Coinmarketcap through 24hr volumes, there are a good number of unknown exchanges near the top.

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Agreed! Stricter regulations on the cryptospace are coming in Canada hehehe.

However, would everyone be surprised if some of the exchanges might be a part of a global money laundering ring? It appears anything is possible in the cryptospace.

[davis196]

What the hell is Coinsquare and why should we care about it?I've never heard anything about Coinsquare.
I guess it's one of the small cryptocurrency exchange platforms,that are going the same old shit many other trading platforms are going-faking trading volume to make them look bigger than they actually are.
I'm glad that they got caught and now it's time for punishment.
This news makes me think that the cryptocurrency industry really needs more strict government regulations,all though I hate regulations,but I'm sick and tired of the trading platforms faking trading volume.

[hv_]

I'm really not surprised that some exchanges do this in my opinion(along with wash trading). If you sort the exchanges on Coinmarketcap through 24hr volumes, there are a good number of unknown exchanges near the top.

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Agreed! Stricter regulations on the cryptospace are coming in Canada hehehe.

However, would everyone be surprised if some of the exchanges might be a part of a global money laundering ring? It appears anything is possible in the cryptospace.

Scary if true. Bitcoin is quite transparent and should be cause of a few

[arayde]

It will be safer to him to order 3rd party market making

[coupable]

Sadly, we can't fight this kind of shady activities. Almost the majority of exchanges [old and new] make fake trades or declare fake trading volumes. However, the story in the mentioned article doesn't look appropriate because there is no reason for an exchange CEO to announce this kind of order decision in an email and that the email can be licked. It would be safer and less cost when using bots.
That article doesn't provide any solid proof, although it's almost possible to be happened as the exchange isn't well known.

[pixie85]

Even isf this nes is real the exchange did not impact the price. It had about a volume of about 8 million dollars so that's on the bottoim of ranked exchanges.

I'm really not surprised that some exchanges do this in my opinion(along with wash trading). If you sort the exchanges on Coinmarketcap through 24hr volumes, there are a good number of unknown exchanges near the top.

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Chinese exchanges were faking volume since the beginning. They stopped for a while when their government got involved but they they were all banned and had to move to Hong Kong, Singapore and other countries. I'm sure they are still wash trading there.

[arwin100]

I'm really not surprised that some exchanges do this in my opinion(along with wash trading). If you sort the exchanges on Coinmarketcap through 24hr volumes, there are a good number of unknown exchanges near the top.

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Agreed! Stricter regulations on the cryptospace are coming in Canada hehehe.

However, would everyone be surprised if some of the exchanges might be a part of a global money laundering ring? It appears anything is possible in the cryptospace.

This should be implemented around the globe but seems this regulation is hard to get up since there are so many unlicensed exchange popping up these days.

I think those laundering scenarios are happening since in casino it happens in the past so provably this one are already used by those frauds to avoid being track on their transactions.

[CaVO32]

Sadly, we can't fight this kind of shady activities. Almost the majority of exchanges [old and new] make fake trades or declare fake trading volumes. However, the story in the mentioned article doesn't look appropriate because there is no reason for an exchange CEO to announce this kind of order decision in an email and that the email can be licked. It would be safer and less cost when using bots.
That article doesn't provide any solid proof, although it's almost possible to be happened as the exchange isn't well known.

You mean licked here as - leaked.   It is not really a smart move from CEO to send such kind of email because it can be used against him or the exchange. So more than likely, it is a fake email. But going back to wash trading, it is really happening even without this email from CEO. A lot of exchanges are doing this shady strategy to make their exchange look good in the community. Just look at P2PB2B, up until now they can't recover their reputation. They can't even run their own sig campaign in the forum.

 Also, there are specific coins or projects that do this kind of tactic even without the exchange's knowledge. This is because a lot of developers are doing this to attract potential buyers of their coin. And they will leave the trading when they accumulated enough money for their pockets. So everyone should really be alert on this kind of trading.

[TravelMug]

I'm really not surprised that some exchanges do this in my opinion(along with wash trading). If you sort the exchanges on Coinmarketcap through 24hr volumes, there are a good number of unknown exchanges near the top.

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Agreed! Stricter regulations on the cryptospace are coming in Canada hehehe.

However, would everyone be surprised if some of the exchanges might be a part of a global money laundering ring? It appears anything is possible in the cryptospace.

It could be, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see hear exchanges being taken down like BTC-e. Yes, everything is possible, hiding the guise of cryptospace but behind those bad actors are really laundering money, this is not far fetched.

I'm sure it wake up Canadian regulatory again after the QuadrigaX exit scam, and will put Coinsquare at the radar for now and gather more information. And maybe we will see Canada SEC pursuing them in the future.

[maxreish]

There is a saying; If there's a smoke, there's a fire.
If these rumours are true, the CEO should explain and answered all the alleged accusations. Such exchange name were dragged down reputation if this is true.

On the other hand, I have found out there has been an old issue about Coinsquare exchange doing such faking volumes before.
- Fake Volume Coinsquare feedback

[pooya87]

However, would everyone be surprised if some of the exchanges might be a part of a global money laundering ring? It appears anything is possible in the cryptospace.

it would be very surprising to me since seeing some money laundered using a bitcoin exchange is one thing (and is inevitable) but to be part of a big money laundering operation is another. and money launderers are using fiat which is a lot less traceable than bitcoin not to mention a lot easier to launder. they would also not lose any money due to volatility!

[bbc.reporter]

I'm really not surprised that some exchanges do this in my opinion(along with wash trading). If you sort the exchanges on Coinmarketcap through 24hr volumes, there are a good number of unknown exchanges near the top.

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Agreed! Stricter regulations on the cryptospace are coming in Canada hehehe.

However, would everyone be surprised if some of the exchanges might be a part of a global money laundering ring? It appears anything is possible in the cryptospace.

This should be implemented around the globe but seems this regulation is hard to get up since there are so many unlicensed exchange popping up these days.

Also, the future of cryptocoin trading might be on gray markets. Small exchanges that do not ask KYC documents from users.

I reckon that darknet exchanges in Tor might be the next course in a world of stricter than strict regulations on the cryptospace.

@pooya87. However, that might be what some exchanges are, fiat launderers. Also, it will not be surprising for me after following BTCe and Alexander Vinnik closely.

[jostorres]

Most of these smaller exchanges are always desperate, they want to be at the top so they are ready to do anything it takes for them to be seen as a good exchange. Many of them has been accused of doing such things. This is what happens when you open up a business when you don’t even have the money to run it. It’s really bad that they are doing this sort of thing. Instead of this, what they should have done is to build a good website that has a better user interface than other exchanges. Then they can start offering better services to attract investors and traders, and then try to promote their company through adverts. That would have been better than just doing some dumb stuffs to deceive people which at last they still get caught.

[slaman29]

Big surprise right? I have worked for bosses who forced us to comment on his Facebook page in the past. When some of us didn't do it, they got issued a HR warning, and then later on we even got a weekly email with reminders and suggestions to post comments.

So I dunno, if CEOs do that, no surprise.

[FAHRKERIM]

Lmao, this looks exactly how presidential elections are going on in my country: all gov and budget workers are forced to go and vote for a current president or else they get fired

[gentlemand]

the story makes no sense to me. why would he need to tell anyone including his employees to make fake trade in his platform when he can do what all the other exchanges have been doing which is create a bot that creates as many trades as he wants to increase the shown volume? or simply do what shittier exchanges like Yobit do and bump the volume manually

Okex employees alleged the same when it was Okcoin. They were told to go trade. I'm not sure why either. Perhaps it looks a bit more convincing with the human factor involved. I remember times in the Chinese casino days when their volume bots broke and it went to instant deadness. That's not a great look.