Forbes says Half of Bitcoin trading volume is fake

[Leviathan.007]

Although I am not sure whether we can really rely on this report or not, I do know that even if they say I am leaving the market, there can be more than half fake trading volumes on the market. There is no doubt that as bitcoin adoption progresses, there will be fewer fake trading volumes, as the governments have stated, and that is the case. As a result of the fake trading volumes or the possibility that this may be used for sinister purposes, they say adoption is necessary. That is how they force us to adopt, which can be good or bad. I believe that if this report is received for bitcoin, it could have a negative effect on other cryptocurrencies as well.

[ingiltere]

I think everyone in forum knows this is definitely, 100 per cent true. Although I also think it does not matter at all. Year is 2022 and not only cryptomarkets, every market has fake volume. Markets became best place to generate money very quickly. There are many options, like bots as example, became very popular and cheap over last 10 years. I don't think we can solve this problem. It is the result of business itself.

This is the comment I was looking for. In every market there is fake volume in different margins. Half of it means very generous, I believe this is more than 90% if you also count automated bots it may go higher. So, what does it matter? This is the working mechanism now. If you remove this volume you will see liquidation problems etc. Trading bots and other automated programs have some downsides but I can't imagine a trading pair without them. We have some local exchanges without bots, they have almost no volume so people can't do anything there even if they want.

[DaveF]

Fair point but you forget to consider 2 different things.

Most of the volume comes from exchange platforms because it's the reality, that's where people trade. Sure, the study didn't consider the volume done IRL for example. We could also mention the DEXs and other places. But I believe (maybe wrongly) that it represents a minimal percentage
By the way, Institutional bitcoin trading volumes account for 99% of transactions over $100,000 and Only 13 crypto exchanges provide ‘trusted’ trading volume (yes I know it's a bit old but the trend hasn't changed a lot since)

Of course, the study isn't perfect but it still gives an overview

Now, who cares? Well, not really a good way to attract people to the crypto market I would say. It's a bit like lying in my opinion

Probably a fun debate here.
My view is big people with the big money are the ones that move the market. 100000 people trading $100 are going to have less of an impact then 1 person trading $10000000 since if they put it all in 1 huge buy or sell it can move the needle. From what I can see the exchanges with fake volume are just 'moving' the same $10 around and around at the same price. Some people may see it, some people may even believe it, but in the end it is not doing anything to the price of BTC and what real traders see and think and do. Obviously this is all just my opinion.

As for the who cares, perhaps not the best wording I would go with, in the end the people who are swayed by the obviously large fake volume are the same ones who invest in the DaveF will make you a millionaire token with this magical internet money token and there is very little we can do to save people from themselves.

Sub points.
1) I also think that there is *some* fake trading that is not as fake as people think it is with some of the larger exchanges, it's just REALLY poorly programmed trading bots.

1a) I am not a programmer but I have seen some WTF code in a few of them which was why I said that.

2) Some of those bots might not be poorly programmed, but done deliberately to drive up peoples trading fees to make the person who wrote and sold the bot a referral commission from the exchanges who are taking the fees.  

3) I think the altcoin / token section here does more damage to attracting people to come and stay with the crypto market then the fake volume. With the full disclosure that I do have and trade alts / tokens but understand that it is gambling.

-Dave

[Zlantann]

If this analysis is realistic, then the ratio is not frightening. There is a percentage of fake volume trading in organized stock markets despite many restrictions that govern its work, let alone an unregulated decentralized market. The effort falls on individuals and governments to force currencies to show real trading volumes or at least limit lying.

This situation is not new, in fact, the government and the stock exchange have been using this strategy to deceive the people. There is this unhealthy competition between these exchange companies. Each of them one to prove that it has the largest customer base. This situation can lead them to fraudulently increase the volume of their trade. But this analysis might not be realistic because most of these exchange firms would not give the research firm accurate data. I am thinking they just used estimation for the research work.

[stompix]

What we don't know, and cannot know is how much volume is done off exchanges. Did DaveF just give hugeblack $20000 in cash for 1BTC while we were at lunch together with stompix mediating the trade?

The thing is that that volume would be minimal because we would each have  to get our share of the profit, so hugeblack would have to sell to you at a premium, I will take my fee, and all of us will have to pay for bank transfers and so on and in the end if you would want to sell those coins again you will have to add all that on top of your profit margin so nobody will buy from you until the price goes up.

While on CEX you can make trades for a change of 100$ in price and still get profit with the minimal 0.05% fees doing this over lb, bisq or anything else is impracticable. And speaking of LB, they do release their volume, and it's quite low,  $8 million a week, just over a million a day. And even Bisq release those and they are far lower than LB.

Rather than calling those trades I would say people over LB,LC Bisq and others are buying coins, like buying and keeping them in their stash rather than trading in CEX where you buy and sell them over and over for each 1% gain.

[lucates]

This really wouldn’t surprise me nor do I have a hard time believing it. Now I think the 51% “finding” is a bit unfounded, and don’t believe that to be a true accurate number of how much of the trading volume is fake, but I could see a portion of that, maybe a quarter, for coins like bitcoin. Not for most all shitcoins, I could see that number being accurate. They are mostly nonsense pseudo scams anyhow.

A wash trade is a form of market manipulation in which an investor simultaneously sells and buys the same financial instruments to create misleading, artificial activity in the market place. First, an investor will place a sell order, then place a buy order to buy from himself, or vice versa. It's also happened on the stock market, but it will be controlled by the new rules and regulations. In the case of crypto-currencies, making such laws will hope that the future market will be more reliable than nowadays.