美国国家公共电台 NPR--How "wash trading" is perpetuating crypto fraud

How "wash trading" is perpetuating¹ crypto fraud

Transcript²

The enormous number of fake Bitcoin trades may be traced to an age-old practice used to manipulate markets. It's called "wash trading."

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

People obsessed³ with cryptocurrency got some news from a recent headline in Forbes, which said "More Than Half Of All Bitcoin Trades Are Fake." Paddy Hirsch and Wailin Wong from NPR's podcast The Indicator⁴ say the culprit may be an age-old practice used to manipulate markets.

PADDY HIRSCH, BYLINE⁵: There are a lot of ways that unscrupulous traders can generate this kind of fake volume. But one of the most prevalent is something called wash trading. This was a kind of a new term for us, not surprisingly, because wash trading has actually been banned on regulated market exchanges in the United States since 1936. But what is wash trading exactly? Kim Grauer is director of research at Chainalysis, which watches the crypto space.

KIM GRAUER: Wash trading is a trading strategy in which the buyer and the seller is effectively on both sides of the trade, and a person will essentially⁶ sell themselves an asset to create the illusion that a particular asset is trading far more than it actually is.

HIRSCH: For example, imagine you're a writer who has self-published a novel. You really, really want to get your book out to a bestseller list because people who read novels often use bestseller lists as a guide to what they should buy next.

WAILIN WONG, BYLINE: So to do this, you create a bunch of bogus accounts on Amazon. You allocate⁷ a bunch of money to each one, and you use those accounts to buy 100,000 of your e-books. Presto⁸, your book goes to No. 1 on the bestseller list. And now people are interested.

HIRSCH: And with a bit of luck, they also start buying, which is where you start to make money. But your original investment - that money that you spent to buy all those books from yourself - goes right back into your pocket. It is, as the phrase goes, a wash.

WONG: And while we couldn't confirm the claims that Forbes makes about the volume of fake trading in bitcoin specifically, Kim Grauer at Chainalysis confirms that the crypto-verse is awash in wash trading.

HIRSCH: Now, Kim says that most wash traders in the crypto-verse aren't making huge amounts of money. Many aren't making money at all. But some are raking it in. And that creates a big incentive⁹ for unscrupulous traders hoping to take advantage of an effectively unregulated market.

GRAUER: This is all a legal gray area that we're all trying to figure out how this should be regulated and what's illegal, and is this just someone being smart and taking advantage of a platform effectively, or is this something that we need to kind of come down with a hammer and stamp out that activity?

HIRSCH: The government says that all wash trading, wherever it happens, is illegal. The problem is that no one has really yet determined¹⁰ what crypto assets actually are and who has jurisdiction¹¹ over them.

WONG: Is bitcoin a security and therefore covered by the SEC? Are NFTs commodities, in which case they'd be regulated by the CFTC? Until the government decides how to classify crypto assets, it's hard for regulators to police the way they're traded.

HIRSCH: Yeah. And Kim says that everyone in the crypto-verse is keen to find a regulatory solution that protects investors¹² without stifling¹³ innovation. She says in some ways, crypto is helped by the fact that everything is based on the blockchain, which makes trades transparent¹⁴. But that also means being able to see every bad act.

GRAUER: I can tell you how much wash trading was happening today on certain platforms. And I think long term, that's going to force cryptocurrency to clear a higher hurdle¹⁵ of legitimacy¹⁶ than the traditional financial system because of all of the attention that cryptocurrency crime has.

WONG: One example of that attention - that Forbes report that claims 50% of all bitcoin trades are fake.

Wailin Wong.

HIRSCH: Paddy Hirsch, NPR News.

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1 perpetuating   

perpetuate的现在进行式

参考例句：

• Revenge leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of violence. 怨怨相报会导致永不休止的暴力。
• It'set out to eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. 它的目的只是要根除异端邪说，结果却巩固了异端邪说。 来自英汉文学

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

4 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

7 allocate   

vt.分配，分派；把…拨给；把…划归

参考例句：

• You must allocate the money carefully.你们必须谨慎地分配钱。
• They will allocate fund for housing.他们将拨出经费建房。

8 presto   

adv.急速地；n.急板乐段；adj.急板的

参考例句：

• With something so important,you can't just wave a wand and presto!在这么重大的问题上，你想挥动一下指挥棒，转眼就变过来,办不到！
• I just turned the piece of wire in the lock and hey presto,the door opened.我把金属丝伸到锁孔里一拧，嘿，那门就开了。

9 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

10 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

11 jurisdiction   

n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权

参考例句：

• It doesn't lie within my jurisdiction to set you free.我无权将你释放。
• Changzhou is under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province.常州隶属江苏省。

12 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

13 stifling   

a.令人窒息的

参考例句：

• The weather is stifling. It looks like rain. 今天太闷热，光景是要下雨。
• We were stifling in that hot room with all the windows closed. 我们在那间关着窗户的热屋子里，简直透不过气来。

14 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

15 hurdle   

n.跳栏，栏架；障碍，困难；vi.进行跨栏赛

参考例句：

• The weather will be the biggest hurdle so I have to be ready.天气将会是最大的障碍，所以我必须要作好准备。
• She clocked 11.6 seconds for the 80 metre hurdle.八十米跳栏赛跑她跑了十一秒六。

16 legitimacy   

n.合法，正当

参考例句：

• The newspaper was directly challenging the government's legitimacy.报纸直接质疑政府的合法性。
• Managing from the top down,we operate with full legitimacy.我们进行由上而下的管理有充分的合法性。