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The Menace Of Crypto Market Manipulations and Mitigation
In June 2018, a post by Forbes magazine focused on a crypto enthusiast’s tweet discussing the deep manipulation in the crypto market. The Twitter account user cited many practices of crypto exchanges that are illegal in traditional exchanges. Some of these practices include wash trades, spoofing, and front running.
Market manipulation involves a collection of different practices to influence the market for personal gain. Therefore, it is vital for you, as a crypto enthusiast, to better understand market manipulation and protect yourself. So, keep reading to get insight into the risks and mitigations of crypto market manipulation.
Consequences of Market Manipulation
Usually, the persons who initiate the market manipulations are the biggest gainers at the other small traders’ expense in crypto markets. Therefore, market manipulation is a significant issue for crypto exchanges and those trading coins. Moreover, these criminals devise manipulation schemes on telegram or other social media platforms to get people who want fast returns.
New crypto traders who want fast returns often lose the most in crypto manipulation schemes. They are vested in getting supernormal profits with little to no effort.
The other big losers in these scams are always the crypto exchanges. The exchanges face critiques, which often vilify them for not putting proper measures to fight manipulation. As a result, these platforms will not just lose their names, but also traders will shun using them.
The crypto industry also loses a great deal from such manipulation schemes. Financial experts, traders, and institutions lose trust in a sector prone to such attacks. In addition, some media houses may take advantage of these manipulations and vilify the crypto industry, which raises no regulations.
The criticism effect is a slowed adoption of the crypto industry and a ban in some countries. When banning bitcoins, for example, the Bangladesh central bank highlighted that one of its reasons is that Bitcoin poses financial loss to its citizens. Undoubtedly, the publicized market manipulation schemes and hackings in the crypto world were the reasons for imposing the ban.
How to Spot and Avoid Market Manipulation
To understand the best way to protect yourself against market manipulation, you need to know how criminals manipulate markets. Here are a few manipulation tricks and how to defend yourself quickly.
Wash Trading with Multiple Exchanges
Whale traders use this technique to create high demand or trading volumes for assets. Wash trading involves transactions where there is no actual exchange of securities. The idea of wash trading is the creation of misleading sales in the market. When seen by investors, these false transactions will create a false impression of substantial trading activity exchanges.
The false transactions create fake liquidity and thus attract new users to the exchange. Trade volumes are suitable for cash in the traditional world, but things are different in the crypto world. Small exchanges are mostly prone to this manipulation since they need to attract investors.
External forces think the best solution to this menace would be introducing some degree of regulations. We still don’t know if this is possible in the crypto world; however, you should protect yourself as a trader. The most productive way of protecting yourself is avoiding very high trades, especially in new exchanges. In addition, try on crypto exchanges with longer price fluctuations durations; this will save you the pain of losing in fast deals.
Hidden Orders
Hidden orders are orders that are not on the order book. In this strategy, a trader manipulates the market by placing high orders with no intention of executing them. These hidden orders represent large flows but are usually canceled when the market hits the intended levels.
The best way of avoiding being deceived with hidden orders is by not focusing so much on the order book. Just checking the market trends of the particular exchange and its trade history is a proper mitigation technique. Liquidity providers and algorithmic traders are experts in manipulating hidden orders. It would help if you were very wary when trading cryptos in the exchanges.
Forced Liquidation
Forced liquidation is where all assets owned by an individual are sold, especially when they cannot meet some requirements. Brokerage firms and big market movers may take advantage by putting themselves in a liquidating position.
Forcing a liquidation leads to losses for small traders while the whales increase their value. It’s hard and near impossible to predict if brokers or market whales are using the strategy.
Slippage is the method used for mitigation against all forms of market manipulation. It involves determining the value of an asset in different exchanges. Notice the rate of price decline in each of the assets.
Exchanges that manipulate their market have very high slippages indicating significant price declines and unstable order books. The high slippages will prove that their volumes are fake since small sell orders can manipulate the order books and coin prices.
Final Word
Crypto market manipulation has led to severe losses for small crypto traders while the whales make supernormal profits. However, it’s difficult to determine the required regulatory measures to balance the crypto world. Therefore, it would be best to be careful in all your crypto transactions and exchanges.
You can also use platforms that are free from market manipulations. Some platforms include Binance, CoinBase, BitFinex, Liquid, and BitStamp, which have not seen manipulation problems since their inception. Although there’s a need for regulations to protect the crypto space from market manipulation, traders should be cautious to ensure they do not lose.
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