Canadian regulator Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) accused exchange Coinsquare of of market manipulation and misleading clients about trading volumes.
According to OSC, Coinsquare has been accused of wash-trading reports of hack. For the uninitiated, a wash trade is a form of market manipulation in which an investor simultaneously sells and buys the same financial instruments to create misleading, artificial activity in the marketplace.
Founder Virgile Rostand, CEO Cole Diamond and chief compliance officer Felix Maz is respondent.
In the complaint the OSC mentioned the following according to a report in Cointelegraph.
Between July 17, 2018 and Dec. 4, 2019, Coinsquare did about 840,000 wash trades with an aggregate value of around 590,000 Bitcoins, the OSC said.
These represented over 90% of trading volume on the exchange. Despite concerns from staff, Coinsquare continued its wash-trading activities and thus manipulated the market and consumers, said the OSC.
The regulator requested information on the exchange’s trading activity but Coinsquare did not report any irregularities and said it is “taking steps to prevent market manipulation and highlighted controls it claimed could help detect such conduct.”
The OSC also said Coinsquare terminated an internal whistleblower after the employee raised concerns about the wash trading.
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