Original Title: FBI Issues Tokens to Trap and Charge Crypto Companies for "Price Manipulation"
Source: Coin68
U.S. officials have charged four cryptocurrency companies, accusing them of manipulating the market and hyping a token created by the FBI.
The FBI issued tokens to set a trap, then charged crypto companies specializing in "hype."
On October 9, the U.S. Department of Justice charged four cryptocurrency companies—Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global, and MyTrade—along with 18 executives from these companies, accusing them of market manipulation and hyping cryptocurrency tokens.
U.S. prosecutors stated that these four defendant companies established cryptocurrency projects but provided false information and engaged in wash trading to create a false impression of active trading and high demand for these projects. Once the token prices rose to a certain level, the defendants began to sell off for profit.
All four companies admitted to the charges and had $25 million worth of crypto assets seized.
Meanwhile, Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global, and MyTrade were hired as market makers to engage in wash trading for these tokens.
Notably, to investigate this case, the FBI created a token called "NexFundAI" as a "bait," then hired market makers to establish a market, ultimately collecting evidence of criminal activity.
According to data from DEXTools, the NexFundAI token was issued at the end of May 2024, and its price surged sharply in the following days, then remained stable for a long time before plummeting at the end of August, and is currently halted from trading.
NexFundAI token price chart, screenshot from DEXTools on October 10, 2024, at 10:55 AM
The U.S. Department of Justice stated that this is the first time U.S. authorities have charged financial crimes in the cryptocurrency industry. This is seen as a reflection of U.S. authorities ramping up their crackdown after $5.6 billion was lost by Americans in cryptocurrency scams in 2023. Previously, U.S. authorities also fined Binance $4.3 billion, accusing it of money laundering.
This incident has sparked controversy in the crypto community on X (Twitter), with most people surprised by the FBI's tactic of setting a trap to catch criminals. Now everyone must act cautiously to avoid "falling into the government's trap" when interacting with meme tokens of unknown origin.
However, in the past few hours, a large number of meme tokens with names similar to NexFundAI have been created and are actively traded.
Tokens named NexFundAI are being traded, screenshot from DEXTools in the morning of October 10, 2024.
Blockchain analyst @jconorgrogan also discovered the FBI's crypto wallet.
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