In the last few days, speculations about massive manipulation of the cryptocurrency market have again made the rounds. Allegedly, the scammers behind the Chinese PlusToken crypto scheme are said to have first invested the money stolen from their customers in a deliberate effort to manipulate the BTC from $3,500 in early 2019 to just under $14,000. This is claimed by analyst Jacob Canfield.
Once BTC began lifting off, FOMO from sidelined traders not wanting to miss out the new bull run drove the price up, causing the asset to go parabolic once again.
The PlusToken scammers are said to have sold the BTC at prices between $9,000 and $13,000 and to have collected $600 million. With these winnings, they would have subsequently manipulated individual Altcoins.
In fact, in recent weeks the Altcoins have won massively over Bitcoin. According to Jacob Canfield, between December 2019 and February 2020, the Altcoins received nearly $66 billion. And this was very specifically controlled by the scammers behind PlusToken.
The PlusToken scheme operated an online wallet and promised its user high rates of return when investing in their cryptocurrency PLUS using Bitcoins or Ethereum. The scammers claimed those returns would be generated by “exchange profit, mining income, and referral benefits.” Chinese media reports that the scam attracted over $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency. Six individuals connected to PlusToken scheme were arrested in June 2019. The stolen funds, however, have continued to move through the crypto universe.
