Coinsquare CEO Accused of Orchestrating Wash Trades
In the latest blow to the embattled Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Coinsquare, reports are accusing the platform’s top executive of orchestrating a wash-trading scheme in clear violation of securities law. Wash-trading refers to an exchange artificially inflating its trade volume through executing larger zero-fee market trades into their own orders, creating the appearance of large trading activity without any assets changing hands.
The accusations levied at Coinsquare were reported by Vice on June 13, with the publication claiming to have obtained leaked emails, Slack messages, and other files incriminating the exchange’s CEO, Cole Diamond. Suspicions surrounding Coinsquare’s trade volume have persisted since at least 2018 — when multiple Reddit users began speculating that much of the exchange’s volume may be fake.
