When you hear about a new crypto project surging 500% in a day, it’s rarely because of real demand. It’s usually crypto market manipulation, the deliberate distortion of price, volume, or perception to deceive investors. Also known as market rigging, it’s how scammers turn empty tokens into trending assets—then vanish with your money. This isn’t rare. It’s the default setup for half the projects you see on CoinMarketCap.
Look at TVL manipulation, the practice of inflating Total Value Locked numbers to make DeFi protocols look more successful than they are. Projects fake it by looping their own tokens between wallets, borrowing liquidity from other protocols, or using bots to simulate trading. The result? A shiny TVL number that fools new investors into thinking the project is safe. But when the fake liquidity dries up, the token crashes—and you’re left holding worthless tokens, like with the LNR Lunar Crystal NFT airdrop, a project that promised free NFTs but disappeared without a trace.
Then there’s the classic pump and dump, a scheme where a group buys a low-cap coin, hyped it on social media, drives up the price, then sells off before the crowd catches on. It’s happening right now with obscure tokens tied to fake airdrops like CHY airdrop, a token claiming to fight poverty but worth $0 with zero trading volume. These aren’t mistakes. They’re business models.
And it’s not just DeFi. Even exchanges get in on it. Some platforms quietly manipulate order books, hide large sells, or push meme coins to attract retail traders—then pull the plug when the hype fades. The Superp Crypto Exchange, offering 10,000x leverage with no liquidations, sounds like a dream—but who’s really behind it? And what happens when the market turns?
What makes this worse is that most people don’t know how to spot the signs. They see a trending token, check the price chart, and assume it’s real. But real projects don’t need to lie. They don’t need fake airdrops, inflated metrics, or anonymous teams. They build, they ship, and they let users decide.
Below, you’ll find real stories of projects that vanished, exchanges that hid risks, and airdrops that were never real. You’ll see how North Korea steals billions through crypto hacking, how Algeria’s ban didn’t stop underground trading, and why the WELL airdrop, a claimed token with no verified existence is a red flag you can’t ignore. This isn’t theory. These are cases that happened. And if you don’t know how to spot manipulation, you’re already the target.
Market cap manipulation in cryptocurrency uses pump-and-dump schemes, wash trading, and spoofing to trick investors. Learn how these scams work and how to protect your investments from artificial price inflation.
