“Mr. Griffin looked at the flow of digital tokens going in and out of Bitfinex and identified several distinct patterns that suggest that someone or some people at the exchange successfully worked to push up prices when they sagged at other exchanges. To do that, the person or people used a secondary virtual currency, known as Tether, which was created and sold by the owners of Bitfinex, to buy up those other cryptocurrencies.”
www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/techn
Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated, Fueling Skyrocketing Value, Researchers Say (Published 2018)
A University of Texas team found evidence that a cryptocurrency boom may have been largely due to manipulation.