Coinbase Exec accuses Binance of crypto price manipulation

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The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has long been under fire after the collapse of FTX. In particular, there was strong criticism due to opaque proof of reservations issued by the auditing firm Mazars, which discontinued cooperation with the exchange shortly thereafter.

Over the year, however, critics have become calmer and Binance has faded from the spotlight as DCG and Genesis have become the crypto industry’s biggest headache. But Conor Grogan, Head of Commodity Business Operations at Coinbase, today presented serious new allegations against Binance.

In a Twitter thread, Grogan wrote that there is an 18+ month running pattern of Binance. He found Binance-connected wallets that were buying $900,000 RARI seconds before registration and threw them away minutes after.

He also uncovered an incident in which around 78,000 ERNs were purchased between June 17 and 21 and sold immediately after the listing was announced. The same was done with TORN, where “hundreds of thousands were bought and sold right after the announcement”.

Another example is buying RAMP, worth over $500,000, over several days, before sending it to Binance within minutes of the listing announcement. Assuming they sold it, that was a salary of around $100,000. Grogan explained:

I found all of this by looking at the original wallet’s OKX deposit address and looking at the other counterpart wallets. Not super opsec by them. I just started digging so there might be more examples.

According to the Coinbase executive, the front-running could have various causes. According to Grogan, it is most likely an MNPI (Material Nonpublic Information) insider that is being exploited by a rogue employee who is connected to the listing team and has details of new asset announcements.

Another explanation could be that a trader finds a leak in a test trading API or exchange. Either way, regulators and law enforcement are likely to be very interested in the case, as evidenced by recent cases against Coinbase for insider trading.

Bitcoin price manipulated by a single entity at Binance?

Notably, rumors surfaced last week that Bitcoin’s entire move from $17,000 to $21,000 was initiated by a Binance entity. First, an anonymous trader pointed out that the move was fueled by a BUSD stablecoin whale, citing BTC Spot CVD (Cumulative Volume Delta). On January 15, he shared the following chart and wrote:

The entire move from 17,000 to 21,000 was made by someone on Binance aggressively buying Bitcoin with BUSD. Other exchanges started buying around 19.5k with USDT + USD. Green CVD also includes all trades with Binance USDT, yellow CVD – only BUSD.

Bitcoin spot CVD | Source: Twitter @exitpumpBTC

Yesterday the trader wrote that both CVDs have been showing bearish Bitcoin divergences since yesterday. Green line – CVD spot with all stablecoins including our beloved BUSD, blue line – CVD perps with all stablecoins as well. Looks like the passive seller won this time, the trader said.

Bitcoin spot CVD | Source: Twitter @exitpumpBTC

However, the trader also clarified that while he was the first to report the huge buying of BTC with BUSD on Binance, he never mentioned the words cartel or manipulation.

At press time, the price of Bitcoin was again attacking the $23,000 level.

BTC price remains strong, 1-day chart | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

Featured image from iStock, charts from Twitter and TradingView.com

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