Opinion by: Tracy Jin, Chief Operating Officer, MEXC
Market manipulation is everywhere and yet nowhere to be seen. It is an invisible threat affecting crypto and traditional markets, leaving ordinary traders counting the costs. Sometimes, manipulation is obvious — illiquid tokens being pumped high before being dumped just as fast — but often, it’s subtler and more challenging to detect.
What’s more concerning is that these schemes are no longer the domain of rogue whales or amateur pump groups. Signs increasingly point to highly organized, well-funded networks coordinating activities across centralized exchanges, derivatives platforms, and onchain ecosystems. As these actors grow in sophistication, their threat to market integrity expands exponentially.
A tale as old as time
Market manipulation is as old as markets themselves. In ancient Greece, a philosopher named Thales of Miletus used his knowledge of weather patterns to predict a bumper olive harvest, quietly leasing all the olive presses in the region