Glossary
Wash Trading
A market manipulation where a trader simultaneously buys and sells the same asset to fake volume and price activity without any real change in ownership.
Wash trading is when the same party sits on both sides of a trade — buying and selling an asset to itself — so the transaction creates volume and price prints without any genuine transfer of ownership. The goal is to fabricate the appearance of demand, liquidity, or interest.
In crypto it shows up on exchanges padding reported volume to climb ranking sites, and on NFT marketplaces where a wallet trades a token back and forth with itself to inflate floor prices or farm trading-reward tokens. On-chain analysts flag it by spotting assets cycling between linked wallets, self-funded counterparties, and trades that never touch a neutral order book. It is illegal on regulated venues and a common red flag in token and collection due diligence.