KuCoin’s leaked ‘volume-boosting’ offers draw accusations of wash trading | Confirmed! New Samsung Galaxy device will offer private key storage
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KuCoin’s leaked ‘volume-boosting’ offers draw accusations of wash trading
Confirmed! New Samsung Galaxy device will offer private key storage
“We received an email saying ‘you have the ability to improve your volume or you’ll be delisted. Then they [KuCoin] recommended market-making firms that would help us reach the minimum daily volumes they set for projects. I was honestly shocked at the requests they were making.” — Talal Tabbaa, COO Jibrel
The Big Block
There appeared to be only one logical conclusion when 16 tokens were simultaneously delisted from KuCoin in late 2018: they were useless tokens, and the Hong Kong-based exchange was making an example of them for failing to generate trading volumes for its 5 million registered users.
But, as ever in crypto, the story goes deeper.
The Block has found that at least four projects received an ultimatum from KuCoin; pay up to $180,000 in volume-boosting fees, or face being delisted.
After falling into the bottom 18 percent of tokens in daily trades, putting them on so-called “Special Treatment rules,” sources say that Jibrel, Encrpgen, Publica and Unikrn were advised there was one quick route to recovery: pumping volume by “any means necessary”.
“We received an email saying ‘you have the ability to improve your volume or you’ll be delisted,'” said Jibrel’s COO Talal Tabbaa. “Then they recommended market-making firms that would help us reach the minimum daily volumes they set for projects. I was honestly shocked at the requests they were making.”
Tabbaa said the exchange recommended two market-making options, who introduced themselves as KuCoin affiliates who did the “listing and marketing” for the exchange.
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