No, you’re raising red flags. With a federal criminal probe into cryptocurrency market manipulation looming in the background, a new report from Bloomberg has raised even more questions about the relationship between cheating and the price of Bitcoin. This time it’s the popular US-based platform Kraken that’s in the crosshairs. According to Bloomberg’s analysis of recent trading data, large trades involving Tether, a popular “stablecoin,” have seemed to affect the price similarly as smaller trades, “ignoring the normal rules of economics.” Bloomberg consulted experts familiar with market manipulation who said that this pattern, and the frequent appearance of “oddly specific order sizes,” are “red flags” that could imply cheating.
Tether has been a lightning rod for scrutiny for months. In June, an academic researcher with a history of spotting suspicious Wall Street trading activity published a paper suggesting that large Tether transactions at another exchange, Bitfinex, had been used to prop up Bitcoin’s price following downturns last year. In December, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission subpoenaed Tether and Bitfinex. Neither has been officially accused of wrongdoing.
In a defensive and dismissive blog post, Kraken denied any wrongdoing and argued that Tether’s price stability is simply due to its being backed by real US dollars (even though Tether has yet to prove that via an official audit). The post even suggested that it was Bloomberg, not Kraken, that should be accused of market manipulation, since it “raises red flags” that the story was published on a day when many Bitcoin futures expired. Come on, now. | 
