Bittensor, an AI token, is delighting investors with a strong rally — up 62% over the past month. But can it surpass its previous all-time high in the coming months or years? Read our Bittensor price prediction to find out.…

Bittensor price prediction: The AI token surges ahead

_**Opinion by: Tracy Jin, Chief Operating Officer, MEXC**_
Market manipulation is everywhere and yet nowhere to be seen. It is an 
invisible threat affecting crypto and traditional markets, leaving ordinary 
traders counting the costs. Sometimes, manipulation is obvious &#8212; illiquid 
tokens being pumped high before being dumped just as fast &#8212; but often, it&#8217;s 
subtler and more challenging to detect.
What&#8217;s more concerning is that these schemes are no longer the domain of rogue 
whales or amateur pump groups. Signs increasingly point to highly organized, 
well-funded networks coordinating activities across centralized exchanges, 
derivatives platforms, and onchain ecosystems. As these actors grow in 
sophistication, their threat to market integrity expands exponentially.
## A tale as old as time
Market manipulation is as old as markets themselves. In ancient Greece, a 
philosopher named Thales of Miletus used his knowledge of weather patterns to 
predict a bumper olive harvest, quietly leasing all the olive presses in the 
region at a low rate before the season started. Then, when the harvest came 
in, and demand for presses spiked, he rented them out at inflated prices, 
pocketing the difference.
For a more recent historical example, albeit still 300 years in the past, see 
the South Sea Company bubble in which company directors dumped shares at peak 
prices, leaving regular investors rekt. Or the Dutch tulip bubble of a century 
earlier.
Market manipulation has existed in crypto since the first exchanges came 
onstream around 2011. Those who were around back then may recall the pump-and- 
dump schemes on the BTC-E exchange orchestrated by a notorious trader called 
Fontas. Or they might remember Bear Whale, whose 30,000 BTC sell wall crashed 
the market at a time when total daily trading volume was less than $30 million 
&#8212; for all of crypto combined. While not technically market manipulation, it 
showed how easily one individual could move the crypto market.
Fast forward to today, and crypto is a multi-trillion dollar asset class, 
rendering manipulation of large-cap assets virtually impossible for solitary 
whales. But when a group of nefarious traders team up, it&#8217;s still possible to 
move markets &#8212; and well-organized insiders are doing just that.
## Manipulators make their move
The days when a single whale could set a BTC sell wall that took weeks to 
topple are long gone. While crypto is magnitudes more liquid these days, it&#8217;s 
also much more fragmented. This presents opportunities to enterprising traders 
who hunt in packs to move markets to their advantage. Often working through 
private Telegram groups, people coordinate activities targeting markets where 
they can have the most effect. The trend highlights the growing participation 
of major players in market manipulation schemes, presenting a new level of 
risk for the crypto industry.
_**Recent:**__**What are exit liquidity traps &#8212; and how to detect them before 
it is too late**_
In February, analyst James CryptoGuru warned of large-scale manipulation risks 
involving spot Bitcoin ETFs. He explained that these instruments could put 
downward pressure on Bitcoin&#8217;s price &#8212; particularly when traditional 
financial markets are closed. Such a strategy could trigger liquidations among 
leveraged traders and create temporary imbalances, allowing large players to 
accumulate BTC and ETH at discounted prices.
Because crypto &#8212; both onchain and on-exchange &#8212; is highly interconnected, 
the ripple effects of a successful manipulation attempt extend far and wide. 
If a trading pair queried by APIs for feeding other markets is knocked out of 
sync on one centralized exchange, it can generate arbitrage opportunities 
elsewhere, including on perps markets. As a result, an attack can be initiated 
on one exchange, and the profits claimed on another, making it extremely hard 
to catch the culprits.
The integrity of the cryptocurrency market faces increased risk. Coordinated 
groups have deep pockets, technical tools, and cross-platform access to 
execute and mask complex operations. The troubling part is that most exchanges 
remain reactive by design since it&#8217;s virtually impossible to prevent market 
manipulation. As a result, attackers have a high chance of retaining the 
advantage, even if the window in which they&#8217;re free to run amok is becoming 
increasingly smaller.
## Not all manipulators break the rules
Just as Thales of Miletus wasn&#8217;t breaking the rules when he profited off olive 
season, much of what constitutes crypto manipulation isn&#8217;t illegal. When a 
large fund starts buying a particular token through one of their public 
wallets to attract attention &#8212; is that manipulation? Or when market makers go 
beyond simply matching bid-ask spreads to actively propping up a token&#8217;s price 
at the request of a project? Many things move markets, but mostly things that 
aren&#8217;t illegal &#8212; at least not now.
While the moral code governing influencers, market makers, trading firms, and 
other players of serious size can be debated at length, other cases require 
less nuance. The last time anyone checked, using thousands of exchange 
accounts staffed by dozens of users to inflate a particular asset is blatant 
manipulation. Exchanges, aided by increasingly sophisticated AI-powered 
tooling, are fighting back.
The days when one user would cause mayhem on the markets may be over. The 
threat hasn&#8217;t, however, dissipated in the multichain, multi-exchange era &#8212; 
it&#8217;s multiplied. As a result, exchanges are now locked into a game of whack-a- 
mole, trying to detect suspicious behavior initiated by hundreds or thousands 
of accounts simultaneously.
Thankfully, exchanges don&#8217;t have to do it alone, as successful collaboration 
cases show. When Bybit was hacked in early 2025, other platforms stepped in to 
lend ETH and help it meet its withdrawal obligations &#8212; a rare but powerful 
sign of solidarity in the face of crisis.
As well-funded, highly organized groups continue to test the system, one thing 
becomes clear: manipulating the market may be relatively easy &#8212; but doing so 
without being detected is increasingly difficult. Collective vigilance, data 
sharing, and early detection are becoming the most effective tools in 
safeguarding the integrity of the crypto trading ecosystem.
_**Opinion by: Tracy Jin, Chief Operating Officer, MEXC.**_
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and 
should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and 
opinions expressed here are the author&#8217;s alone and do not necessarily reflect 
or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Crypto market manipulation schemes are becoming increasingly coordinated

Ripple, the US-based crypto services firm behind the XRP Ledger, has committed 
$25 million in Ripple USD (RLUSD) to education nonprofits DonorsChoose and 
Teach For America.
According to a May 5 announcement, the grant will be processed through the 
crypto charity intermediary service The Giving Block. DonorsChoose CEO Alix 
Guerrier said &#8220;teachers are going the extra mile for their students&#8217; 
education, even spending hundreds &#8212; sometimes thousands &#8212; of dollars out-of- 
pocket for their classrooms.&#8221; The donations are meant to provide teachers with 
resources for such initiatives.
Ripple cites a 2024 Gallup survey showing that 55% of US parents and adults 
are dissatisfied with the quality of K-12 education in the United States. This 
highlights &#8220;constraints and gaps in funding for education,&#8221; the reports reads. 
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in the statement:
&gt; &#8220;We hope to inspire others to do the same, starting with Teacher 
&gt; Appreciation Week, and leading into the rest of the year to support students 
&gt; and teachers with the resources they need to build a stronger future for 
&gt; themselves and their communities.&#8221;
Teach For America CEO Aneesh Sohoni said the new funding will allow the 
organization to expand its &#8220;Ignite Tutoring Fellows program, drive innovation 
in our Reinvention Lab, and provide crucial financial assistance&#8221; to prepare 
teachers.
_**Related:**__**The Giving Block starts disaster fund for California wildfire 
victims**_
## Crypto-fueled charity
The cryptocurrency industry is familiar with charitable donations. Last month, 
Binance co-founder Changpeng &#8220;CZ&#8221; Zhao pledged over half a million dollars 
worth of crypto to the earthquake disaster relief effort in Thailand and 
Myanmar. The Giving Block forecasts crypto donations to reach $2.5 billion in 
2025.
Another player in the crypto charity field, Blockchain For Impact (BFI), in 
March committed $90 million to advance biomedical research.
_**Magazine:**__**6 Questions for Alex Wilson of The Giving Block**_

Ripple commits $25M US school nonprofits

The Securities and Exchange Commission will host a roundtable on May 12 to 
discuss the growing role of tokenization in financial markets. The event, 
titled “Tokenization — Moving Assets Onchain: Where TradFi and DeFi Meet,” 
will run from 1 p.m.…

SEC announces tokenization roundtable details as Peirce says it could ‘substantially change’ finance

Trump claims he doesn&#8217;t know how much money he made in Official Trump 
memecoin.

‘I haven’t even looked’: Trump claims he doesn’t know what his crypto is worth

The Pi Network price has continued to consolidate since the first week of 
April as demand from investors wanes. Pi Coin (PI) was trading at $0.60 on 
Monday, much lower than its all-time high of $3. It has erased over…