Half of the transactions in the BTC are fictitious — analysts' opinion

According to a study by BanklessTimes, in 2022, more than 51% of daily trading in the flagship cryptocurrency was fictitious. A significant part of the transactions was the so-called «wash trading» — when an asset is repeatedly bought and sold on the same platform within a short period of time. This is done to create false liquidity, increase the price of the asset, and increase trading volumes. Most often, special bots are set up for such operations.

Analysts also linked fictitious trading to the Tether stablecoin (USDT). Since USDT is often used on cryptocurrency exchanges to trade in tandem with BTC, a significant portion of cryptocurrency transactions are carried out without bitcoins actually changing hands. Experts fear that such cheating helps exchanges create false activity and misleads cryptocurrency investors.

At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $ 20,223, with a market capitalization of $ 387.7 billion. According to CoinGecko, the volume of BTC crypto assets currently accounts for 38.5% of all cryptocurrencies on the market. It should be added that cryptocurrency analysts predict growth for bitcoin. For example, Bloomberg strategist Mike McGlone believes in the potential of the flagship crypto, which may become a risk-free asset in the second half of 2022.

We recently reported on a cryptocurrency hacker who stole $ 20 million in bitcoin. Through ransomware, using encryption, the hacker stole data from Windows-based systems and demanded that victims pay the BTC for the return of information. The fraudster’s victims were government agencies, law enforcement agencies, colleges, universities and schools. The offender will be imprisoned for 20 years.