Opinion of: Tracy Jin, chief of the farm, Mexc
Market handling is everywhere and still nowhere. This is an invisible threat affecting the crypto and the traditional markets, leaving ordinary traders counting costs. Sometimes the manipulation is obvious – unliquid tokens pumped high before being thrown just as quickly – but often it is more subtle and more difficult to detect.
What is more worrying is that these patterns are no longer the domain of rogue whales or groups of amateur pumps. The signs are increasingly indicating towards highly organized and well -funded networks to coordinate activities through centralized exchanges, derived platforms and onchain ecosystems. As these players develop in sophistication, their threat of market integrity extends exponentially.
A story as old as time
The market manipulation is as old as the markets themselves. In ancient Greece, a philosopher named Thales of Miletus used his knowledge of weather conditions to predict an exceptional olive harvest, quietly praising all the Olivier’s presses of the region at a low rate before the start of the season. Then, when the harvest arrived and the request for presses increased, it rented them at swollen prices, pacizing the difference.
For a more recent historical example, although still 300 years in the past, see the bubble of the South Sea Society in which the administrators of the company have poured actions at cutting prices, leaving investors regularly. Or the Dutch bubble of Tulip a century earlier.
The manipulation of the market existed in the crypto since the first exchanges ran out around 2011. Those who were at the time can remember the pump and dump diagrams on the BTC-E exchange orchestrated by a notorious merchant called Fontas. Or they could remember Bear Whale, whose 30,000 BTC Sell Wall crushed the market at a time when the total daily daily trading volume was less than $ 30 million – for all combined cryptography. Although it is not technically the manipulation of the market, it has shown with what facility an individual could move the cryptography market.
Quick advance until today, and Crypto is a class of assets of several thieves, which makes the handling of large capitalization assets practically impossible for lonely whales. But when a group of harmful merchants is associated, it is always possible to move markets – and well -organized initiates do that exactly.
Manipulators make their movement
The days when only one whale could define a BTC sales wall that took weeks to overthrow is over for a long time. Although the crypto is more liquid for these days, it is also much more fragmented. This presents opportunities to enterprising merchants who hunt in packs to give the markets to their advantage. Often working through groups of private telegrams, people coordinate activities targeting markets where they can have the most effect. The trend highlights the growing participation of the main players in market manipulation regimes, with a new level of risk for the cryptography industry.
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In February, analyst James Cryptoguru warned against the risks of large -scale manipulation involving FNB Bitcoin. He explained that these instruments could exert downward pressure on the price of Bitcoin – especially when the traditional financial markets are closed. Such a strategy could trigger liquidations among leverage traders and create temporary imbalances, allowing major players to accumulate BTC and ETH at reduced prices.
Because the crypto – both onchain and on exchange – is strongly interconnected, the training effects of a successful manipulation attempt extend far. If a trading pair questioned by APIs for food from other markets is eliminated on a centralized exchange, it can generate arbitration opportunities elsewhere, including on the Perps markets. Consequently, an attack can be launched on an exchange, and the benefits claimed on another, which makes it extremely difficult to take the culprits.
The integrity of the cryptocurrency market faces an increased risk. Coordinated groups have deep pockets, technical tools and multiplatform access to execute and hide complex operations. The disturbing part is that most exchanges remain reactive by design because it is practically impossible to prevent market manipulation. Consequently, the attackers are likely to keep the advantage, even if the window in which they are free to run in Amok is becoming more and smaller.
Not all manipulators break the rules
Just as Thales de Miletus does not break the rules when he took advantage of the olive season, a large part of what constitutes the manipulation of cryptography is not illegal. When a large fund begins to buy a particular token through one of their public portfolios to attract attention – is it manipulation? Or when market manufacturers go beyond the simple fact of matching the bid-Ask differences to actively support the price of a token at the request of a project? Many things move the markets, but especially things that are not illegal – at least not now.
Although the moral code governing influencers, market manufacturers, commercial companies and other serious -size players can be debated at length, other cases require fewer nuances. The last time anyone checked, using thousands of exchange accounts with dozens of users to inflate a particular asset, is a blatant manipulation. The exchanges, helped by increasingly sophisticated tools powered by AI, are fighting.
The days when a user would cause chaos on the markets can be finished. However, the threat has not dissipated in the multi -hole and multi -exchange era – it is multiplied. As a result, exchanges are now locked in a Whack-A-Mole game, trying to detect suspicious behavior initiated by hundreds or thousands of accounts simultaneously.
Fortunately, the exchanges do not have to do it alone, as shown by successful collaboration. When Bybit was hacked at the beginning of 2025, other platforms intervened to lend ETH and help him respect his withdrawal obligations – a rare but powerful sign of solidarity in the face of the crisis.
The well -funded and highly organized groups continue to test the system, one thing becomes clear: market manipulation can be relatively easy – but doing it without being detected is more and more difficult. Collective alertness, data sharing and early detection become the most effective tools to protect the integrity of the crypto trading ecosystem.
Opinion of: Tracy Jin, chief of the farm, Mexc.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and must not be considered as legal or investment advice. The points of view, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are alone of the author and do not reflect or do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
