IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2411.08720.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Wash Traders Exploit Market Conditions in Cryptocurrency Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Hunter Ng

Abstract

Wash trading, the practice of simultaneously placing buy and sell orders for the same asset to inflate trading volume, has been prevalent in cryptocurrency markets. This paper investigates whether wash traders in Bitcoin act deliberately to exploit market conditions and identifies the characteristics of such manipulative behavior. Using a unique dataset of 18 million transactions from Mt. Gox, once the largest Bitcoin exchange, I find that wash trading intensifies when legitimate trading volume is low and diminishes when it is high, indicating strategic timing to maximize impact in less liquid markets. The activity also exhibits spillover effects across platforms and decreases when trading volumes in other asset classes like stocks or gold rise, suggesting sensitivity to broader market dynamics. Additionally, wash traders exploit periods of heightened media attention and online rumors to amplify their influence, causing rapid but short-lived spikes in legitimate trading volume. Using an exogenous demand shock associated with illicit online marketplaces, I find that wash trading responds to contemporaneous events affecting Bitcoin demand. These results advance the understanding of manipulative practices in digital currency markets and have significant implications for regulators aiming to detect and prevent wash trading.

Suggested Citation

  • Hunter Ng, 2024. "How Wash Traders Exploit Market Conditions in Cryptocurrency Markets," Papers 2411.08720, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2411.08720
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.08720
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glosten, Lawrence R. & Milgrom, Paul R., 1985. "Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 71-100, March.
    2. Albert S. Kyle & S. Viswanathan, 2008. "How to Define Illegal Price Manipulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 274-279, May.
    3. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Stock Market Manipulations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1915-1954, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shino Takayama, 2018. "Price Manipulation, Dynamic Informed Trading and Tame Equilibria: Theory and Computation," Discussion Papers Series 603, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    2. Liu, Jie & Wu, Chonglin & Yuan, Lin & Liu, Jia, 2022. "Opening price manipulation and its value influences," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Withanawasam, R.M. & Whigham, P.A. & Crack, T.F., 2013. "Characterising trader manipulation in a limit-order driven market," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 43-52.
    4. Edward Curran & Jack Hunt & Vito Mollica, 2021. "Single stock futures and their impact on market quality: Be careful what you wish for," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(11), pages 1677-1692, November.
    5. Chester Spatt, 2014. "Security Market Manipulation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 405-418, December.
    6. Tālis J. Putniņš, 2012. "Market Manipulation: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 952-967, December.
    7. Oh, Sebeom, 2023. "Market Manipulation in NFT Markets," MPRA Paper 116704, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Takayama, Shino, 2021. "Price manipulation, dynamic informed trading, and the uniqueness of equilibrium in sequential trading," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    9. Yu Huang & Yao Cheng, 2015. "Stock manipulation and its effects: pump and dump versus stabilization," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 791-815, May.
    10. Rossi, Stefano & Tinn, Katrin, 2021. "Rational quantitative trading in efficient markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    11. Zhang, Zhigang & Zhang, Qiang & Liu, Shancun & Wang, Jiarui, 2023. "How does an online influencer manipulate the stock market?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    12. Christian Leuz & Steffen Meyer & Maximilian Muhn & Eugene Soltes & Andreas Hackethal, 2017. "Who Falls Prey to the Wolf of Wall Street? Investor Participation in Market Manipulation," NBER Working Papers 24083, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Carole Comerton-Forde & Tālis J. Putniņš, 2014. "Stock Price Manipulation: Prevalence and Determinants," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(1), pages 23-66.
    14. Allen, Franklin & Haas, Marlene D. & Nowak, Eric & Tengulov, Angel, 2021. "Market efficiency and limits to arbitrage: Evidence from the Volkswagen short squeeze," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 166-194.
    15. Carol Osler & Alasdair Turnbull, 2016. "Dealer Trading at the Fix," Working Papers 101R, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School, revised Jun 2017.
    16. Joshua Mitts, 2020. "Short and Distort," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(2), pages 287-334.
    17. Leung, Henry & Ton, Thai, 2015. "The impact of internet stock message boards on cross-sectional returns of small-capitalization stocks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 37-55.
    18. Earl A. Thompson & Jonathan Treussard & Charles R. Hickson, 2004. "Predicting Bubbles and Bubbles-Substitutes," UCLA Economics Working Papers 836, UCLA Department of Economics.
    19. Kalaitzoglou, Iordanis Angelos & Ibrahim, Boulis Maher, 2015. "Liquidity and resolution of uncertainty in the European carbon futures market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 89-102.
    20. Vladimirov, Vladimir & Terovitis, Spyros, 2020. "How Financial Markets Create Superstars," CEPR Discussion Papers 15546, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2411.08720. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.