Cong, Lin William. <br/><br/>
Crypto Wash Trading / 
Lin William Cong, Xi Li, Ke Tang, Yang Yang. 
 - Cambridge, Mass.  National Bureau of Economic Research  2022. 
 - 1 online resource:  illustrations (black and white); 
 - NBER working paper series  no. w30783 .
 - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)  no. w30783. .
<br/><br/> December 2022. 
<br/><br/> We introduce systematic tests exploiting robust statistical and behavioral patterns in trading to detect fake transactions on 29 cryptocurrency exchanges. Regulated exchanges feature patterns consistently observed in financial markets and nature; abnormal first-significant-digit distributions, size rounding, and transaction tail distributions on unregulated exchanges reveal rampant manipulations unlikely driven by strategy or exchange heterogeneity. We quantify the wash trading on each unregulated exchange, which averaged over 70% of the reported volume. We further document how these fabricated volumes (trillions of dollars annually) improve exchange ranking, temporarily distort prices, and relate to exchange characteristics (e.g., age and userbase), market conditions, and regulation. 
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<br/><br/><br/>System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. <br/>Mode of access: World Wide Web. 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Government Policy and Regulation<br/>Non-bank Financial Institutions &bull; Financial Instruments &bull; Institutional Investors<br/>Other