By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 15th, 2024
Experts from the crypto space have backed the DOJ’s investigation in Bitcoin price manipulation saying that it will help to remove unwanted elements from the crypto market.
On Thursday, May 24, the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) launched a surprise criminal probe to check the possibility of Bitcoin price manipulation by some traders. The investigative agency was looking for the existence of any illegal trading activity such as spoofing or wash trading which can influence the Bitcoin price movements and trap gullible investors.
The Bitcoin price soon tanked by nearly 5% following the news and the cryptocurrency was seen trading below $7400 levels. Currently, at the press time, Bitcoin is trading at $7458.42 with a market cap of $127 billion, according to the data on CoinMarketCap.
A lot of experts and professionals from the cryptocurrency space backed this move saying that it will ensure the long-term health of the crypto market thereby removing unwanted elements from this space.
While speaking to Bloomberg, billionaire investor and former hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz said:
“Weeding out the bad actors is a good thing, not a bad thing for the health of the market. Plenty of exchanges have these inflated volume numbers to create some sense of excitement around coins.”
In addition to Novogratz, other industry professionals like Cameron Winklevoss, who co-founded cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, also shared a similar view where he said:
“any inquiry that serves to foster rules-based marketplaces and deter bad actors.”
It’s just a few days back that Gemini crypto exchange announced a deal in partnership with stock exchange operator Nasdaq, where the exchange will be using the latter’s surveillance technology in order to detect any unusual trading patterns in quick time.
Long-time Bitcoin bull and chief of Fundstrat Global Advisors – Tom Lee – appreciated this move in an email saying
“This is really welcome news ultimately because this means there is adult supervision coming/here.”
Even though Bitcoin has corrected significantly from the start of 2018, with more than 60% erosion in its value, Tom Lee is pretty much firm on his prediction that the world’s largest digital currency is all set to hit $50000 by the end of 2018.
Spencer Bogart of cryptocurrency hedge fund Blockchain Capital said that he wouldn’t be surprised at all in the investigative agencies unearth the cases of frauds. In an email, Bogart said:
“I don’t have any first-hand evidence of manipulation of Bitcoin prices but given that even the most highly regulated and most liquid markets in the world (e.g. Libor, FX markets, commodities) have consistently proven to be manipulated, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise,”
Joseph Saluzzi, Themis Trading LLC partner and co-head of equity trading said that practice of cross-market surveillance in the crypto markets will help to stop these cases of fraud. He said:
“The issue is that there is no one regulator monitoring the underlying exchanges and therefore there is no way to know if manipulation like spoofing is going onSome exchanges will say that they have information sharing agreements with each other, but again this is not enough to ensure that manipulation is not occurring. As we have seen in the equity market, exchanges are for-profit and cannot be trusted to police themselves.”