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Wash Trading over 90% Fake Volume by Many Leading Crypto Exchanges - BTI Report

Kraken, Poloniex, Coinbase and Upbit are among the cleanest cryptocurrency exchanges in the industry. On the other hand, OKEx and Bibox lead the exchanges with the highest percentage of wash trading.

The Blockchain Transparency Institute (BTI) has released its latest market surveillance report which states that according to their calculations, among the Top-100 exchanges on CMC, there are 73 currently which are wash trading over 90% of their volumes. Thus, only about a quarter of the exchanges on CMC publish truthful information about their true volume of trades.


Over 6 months, BTI launched verified program to verify accurate reporting of cryptocurrency exchange volumes. During this period, they have received cooperation from many exchanges. Since the start of 2019, global wash trading has reduced by 35.7% among the top 40 exchanges.

You can also find the data for individual token and exchange wash trading on their newly launched global wash trade tracking page.


According to the BTI report:

"CMC still lists numerous scam exchanges in its Top-10 “Adjusted Volume” rankings. Its Top-10 list includes LBank, BW.com, Bit-Z, Coinbene, and OEX, which our data is shows wash trading rates at high levels from 96.9% up to 99.7%. This continues to be because CMC ranks exchanges by trading volume without any basic checks, which motivates trading platforms to report false data and rank higher, thus becoming more visible to users."
Image Source - Blockchain Transparency Institute (BTI)

BTI also shared some images showing what happens when a trader tries to sell tokens using a market order on these scam exchanges. We see 25-50% drops on those long candle wicks (with low sell volume) due to the order books being filled up with fake liquidity and trades not executing anywhere near the alleged top bids. These types of charts (such as OEX below) with repetitious buying patterns of flat volume bars and/or irregular candle formations continue to be seen on over 70% of exchanges on CMC’s Top-100 “Adjusted Volume” rankings.


Images Source - Blockchain Transparency Institute (BTI)

BEI also stated that it will continue to add BTI Verified exchanges and monitor the cryptocurrency landscape to keep investors informed on the true current state of the space. #Bitcoin #CryptoExchange #WashTrade #FakeVolume

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