All of Top 100 Cryptocurrencies See Red Amidst CFTC Price Manipulation Probe

[Domithra]

Sunday, June 10: crypto markets have seen a sharp drop today, in the wake of the news that the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has launched a probe into four major crypto exchanges.

All of the top-100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization are in the red over the 24 hours to press time, while total market capitalization is down by about $20 bln over the same period, according to Coinmarketcap.

The sharp decline in cryptocurrencies’ prices takes place in the wake of the news that the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has requested trading data from crypto exchanges Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Kraken. These are respectively the 21st, 14th, 45th and 13th largest exchanges in the world by trade volume, according to Coinmarketcap.

Following the launch of Bitcoin futures trading by CME Group in December 2017, the four exchanges subpoenaed by the CFTC, have been providing price data for CME Group. The CFTC’s request is a part of an investigation into whether there is any activity taking place on these platforms that might constitute crypto price manipulation.

Bloomberg reported today that a South Korean crypto exchange Coinrail is reviewing its systems after a suspected hacking attempt. Coinrail has reportedly claimed that it managed to freeze the affected NPXS, NPER and ATX coins. However, this event is unlikely to have significantly impacted the price action on the markets, with Coinmarketcap data showing that Coinrail is the 99th largest crypto exchange, with a trading volume of “just” about $2,5 mln.

Entrepreneur and Bitcoin evangelist Alistair Milne tweeted a poll today, asking his followers what is the reason for the crypto markets’ sharp drop. Milne’s seeming implication that the fall is not related to either the CFTC’s data request or the Coinrail hack was met with approval by the crypto community, with “Aliens” being by far the most popular version, followed by “Crypto iz ded.”

source: Cointelegraph

[altcoingamer]

I hate looking for conspiracy theories but trading on bitfinex seems so ridiculously manipulated.. 50x more volume on 5 min candles then nothing almost immediately after.. its almost like all of the fud in the market is made by 1-2 sellers and arbitration bots are correcting other exchanges after the fact.