Is what WolfOfPoloniex Doing Illegal?steemCreated with Sketch.

in #cryptocurrency7 years ago (edited)

Updates/Edits

  1. I deleted an attack on his character which was irrelevant to the discussion. I apologize for it, it was unnecessary and petty.
  2. I added a screenshot wolf posted regarding when he buys/sells which he used as a retort to me saying he buys/sells before his pack. I'm not sure if his screenshot actually refutes anything, and think it actually strengthens my argument, so I'm leaving up my conjecture.
  3. I added some explanations, changed some wordings that were harsh, unfair, or assumptions.

He goes by the pseudonym @wolfofpoloniex on twitter, and is one of the trading touts that post their opinions alongside technical and fundamental analysis. However, what he is doing goes past posting mere graphs and into market manipulation.

Modus Operandi

Here is what I suspect is Wolf's system:

  1. He charges people .1 BTC per month to be in his "wolfpack", where he posts his personal trading thoughts on what coins to buy. I don't know the exact number of people in his pack, but it is over 500.
  2. He buys a coin that he likes with some optimistic technical analysis or interesting news coming in the following few weeks that he can point to later on a pump. These coins are generally not in the top 10-20 market caps and only available on 1-2 major exchanges. Examples include MCO, MTL, SYS.
  3. He then tells his pack to buy this coin, driving up the price.
  4. When news is released, he points to it on twitter, shows the rising price, shows that he told his group to buy it, and pumps the price even further.
  5. He puts up fake sell walls himself and tells his group to take profits in key areas so that the pump mimics TA, and then rebuys at a lower level within the rising channel.
  6. When buying power begins to wane, he sells the coin.
  7. He then tells his wolf pack to sell the coin, driving down the price from when he sold.
  8. He then tells twitter that he pulled out when the project doesn't deliver to the standards he pumped, and the price drops further.
  9. He can then rebuy the coin at a discount of where he sold and still own it if he believes in it.

So not only is he making money from subscriptions to his pack (possibly over 50 BTC worth a month), but he's having these people who already paid him pump the price of his coin, he's manipulating when they should buy or sell to mimic technical analysis, he's pumping it on twitter with emerging news, and he's then telling his followers to sell after he moved out to drop the price even more.

This doesn't seem like it can possibly be legal for a US citizen, but I honestly don't know if it's black and white illegal and if so what can be done. All I can do is provide evidence.

Proof membership to wolfpack price is .1 BTC:

Proof of over 500 members:

Proof of him pumping news:


Pumping a later falsified rumor that MCO was partnering with VISA:

Edit: I do not believe Wolf knew this rumor was false. Just pointing out that he was picking a coin that likely had news/rumors he could point to as justification for the rise in price which came from his army.

Proof of him manipulating when his group buys/sells to create TA:

This is very damning to me. From wikipedia:

Market manipulation is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market and create artificial, false or misleading appearances with respect to the price of, or market for, a product, security, commodity or currency.

He conspired with hundreds of other people in a coin listed on only a few major exchanges to create false or misleading appearances with respect to the price in order to paint a picture about the market to profit off of it.

EDIT: Wolf posted some screenshots showing times he bought which only prove part of what I said, especially since he did own the coin previously, then bought in more later and sold before his followers at 560k satoshis.

Possible evidence he buys/sells before his group to get the better price, and then the price moves after his group moves in or out, and possible evidence he rebuys later?

This one I don't have direct screenshots for, and this part is a hypothesis on my part, but I had a friend in the group who gave me information, and I'll show you a timeline of events and let you decide.

  • On 8/29/2017, he told his group to exit MCO at 3:12pm central or 8:12pm UTC time.

  • At 8:00 UTC, MCO's price was .00500000 BTC (wolf actually sold before this)

  • At 8:10 UTC, MCO's price was .00474000 BTC

  • By 9:00 UTC, MCO's price was down to .00407000 BTC

I don't know if this is true for this particular coin, or other coins he has pumped. Wolf posted some screenshots of buys/sells, and he owned higher, and sold higher before telling his group to sell:

So he actually did own before he told the group, then bought more at 240k, then continued buying during the pump phase, then started selling at 550k before he told his pack to exit. And we have no idea what he sold after that.


This part is flimsy at best, and I should have excluded from the blog. But I'd rather post what is there and let people decide than to try and guess what is relevant and what isn't. I suspect that he sold most, and kept some of his MCO profits in case the VISA news panned out.

Conclusions

The market manipulation is obvious. Is it illegal? I'm no legal expert, but from what I saw market manipulation is unethical and gray, but not strictly illegal. Does anyone have a better idea of the legality?

What happens when he gives advice on a larger marketcap coin with more volume that isn't only on one or two exchanges? He gets rekt.

On the recent downswing for BTC, wolf tried unsuccessfully to pull what he always does with smaller coins. He said to buy BTC at $3900, said once again to buy it at $3500, and then said to exit all of the crypto markets at $3400. To justify these decisions he was posting charts of the 1 minute candles on BTC and other nonsense that no legitimate trader would try and pull. It's pretty clear he's clueless about trading and just very good at manipulating markets and making money off people willing to pay to help him manipulate.

I don't expect anything to change from posting this.

He will continue going about his business, will probably never get in trouble, and people selling these coins outside his circle of influence without knowledge of his pumps and dumps will be paying the bill. But it's important for people to be aware of what is going on so they can avoid troublesome spots.


My name is Ryan Daut and I'd love to have you as a follower. Click here to go to my page, then click in the upper right corner if you would like to see my blogs and articles regularly.

I am a professional gambler, and my interests include poker, fantasy sports, football, basketball, MMA, health and fitness, rock climbing, mathematics, astrophysics, cryptocurrency, and computer gaming.

Sort:  

I'm following Wolf for more than 3 months. I'm not a member of wolf pack or anything and I didn't pay the guy a penny. His accuracy on many calls specially bitcoin's crashes was much higher than many other analysts in the business including my other paid Telegram channel. He never post a call without evidences (which is mostly technical analysis). Is he manipulating the market? I say probably not since with all those expensive membership fees all he need is to keep the calls correct so people wouldn't leave the paid group. In this level of money making I say all he is looking for is to secure the funds and some wrong calls shouldn't make him a market manipulator.

That was fun. I don't have a way to count up the mentions, but pretty sure my twitter feed got hit about 300 times from his cronies attacking me. Their basic criticism of this blog falls into 3 categories:

  1. Crypto is the wild west! Who cares, everyone is doing it.
  2. LOL you are just a jealous salty hater
  3. I was a wolf customer and I made money! And he took care of us!

To the first point: we need to clean up crypto. This stuff doesn't fly in the real world, it has to be pointed out here. Maybe wolf is unaware of how unethical this is, but I hope this episode has made him change his approach.

To the second point: no I'm not. I was not on the wrong side of his trades, and I'm doing just fine. But there were people who were buying and selling without knowledge of when his pumps/dumps were happening and they lost money.

To the third point: I never meant to imply that he is a scammer. He is a businessman, making a huge amount of money off his reputation, he wasn't going to fuck it up. But him offering refunds to those unimpressed and offering a free month to subscribers is not an indication his process is not unethical.

If there's an extra criticism, it's that I jumped to conclusions or misrepresented things. I tried not to, but I am human, so I went back and edited anything that could have been a conclusion jump. And to me, the damning evidence still stands: him trying to manipulate the price curvature to mimic TA while picking coins that have news/rumors in the works that he can pump so other traders pick up on it and start pushing it is unethical.

Some updates/other rebuttals:

Regarding Wolf not owning coins he pumps

He posted this on 9/2:

Do not fear, this is all healthy. The market is very bullish. If you're in a coin that you absolutely believe in and are in losses, I do not recommend cashing out (I personally am holding about 50 btc in MTL hint hint).

Add in the most damning picture, which is an instance of pure manipulation. This is from 9-7, so he that he waited a few days for a rumor to spring to begin the simultaneous fake buy/sell wall pump in group (posted 1206pm), and pump on twitter 1-3 hours later (1:12 pm) which also points to TA:


Wolf calls this "market making". As I said on twitter, this is in no way shape or form market making.

From wikipedia on market manipulation:

Market manipulation is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market and create artificial, false or misleading appearances with respect to the price of, or market for, a product, security, commodity or currency.

He is creating artificial or misleading appearances on the price charts by using over 500! people to help him pump coins at certain time periods and when to put up sell walls to mimic TA to trick other big traders into buying.

Article from forbes describing this on a much bigger forex exchange where it's harder to swing than it is on a coin that is only on Bittrex: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2010/04/30/when-does-market-making-become-market-manipulation/#42ef03da1e04

I think instead of having this argument further, I'll just leave my opinion here, let wolf ruminate on it, and hope he stops doing specifically that in the future. I don't want to have to force him to admit he was wrong as nobody wants to do that, I just want to have less blatant manipulation, and I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't realize how bad this is.

Thanks for information, this will sace peoples money .

Sounds like he has some profitable business going on...

what do you think about crypto picasso and his bits to freedom? I think they manipulate too, crypto is a unregulated market.

Hello Ryan Daut,

First off, let me say. Good job for actually going through all of that to create such an extensive article. Next, let me say that I did go to jail and served time. However, I served my time and that should be that. There is no reason why you should be bringing up scars of my past as ammunition against me, especially when these mistakes were made when I was under 21 years old.

I'm sure you were a saint when you were younger...

Anyways, you can find full proof that I don't 'Pump & dump' or manipulate the markets as you so harshly insist on (proof : https://twitter.com/WolfOfPoloniex/status/909880524856004609 ) but you're open to freedom of speech... the freedom of speech that I fought for in Afghanistan.

That is fine. You do you.

Due to the constant harassment of the online community, I have decided to retreat into my own projects. I've made more money than I ever imagined, before I even joined Twitter.

#HatersGonnaHate

Love,
-Wolf

WolfOfPoloniex The Wolf tweeted @ 18 Sep 2017 - 20:43 UTC

Due to the articles such as

steemit.com/cryptocurrency… / https://t.co/tLdiYsLQyF

I will continue most of my work behind the scenes & limit my… twitter.com/i/web/status/9…

Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.

Also, @rcdaut, to educate you on Market Manipulation,

Trading based off of TA speculation is NOT market manipulation. It is PURELY speculation. At any time, a giant whale could just come in and dump on the market or could pump the market. ORRRR the market could simply continue being bullish and break through any speculation I am trading off of. Daytraders use these patterns and analysis to speculate on how the markets will move, however, it is NEVER certain or guaranteed.

A perfect example of what IS market manipulation is JPMorgan's Jamie or Jihan Wu's 'hard-fork' manipulative stunts. These characters publicly made statements to cause panic and drop the market price with absolutely no TA or backings behind anything... and then later did the exact opposite.

JPMorgan bought XBT for their clients, even though their Chief Executive stated that it is a fraud and anyone trading it will get fired.

Jihan Wu stated he was going to hard-fork bitcoin, which crashed the markets... and then randomly started signaling for the BIP91 Soft-fork.

Please go read a book and learn before you start wars within the community. What you are trying to say is that basically ANYONE that gives out ANY sort of 'calls', 'signals', 'advice', or even CHARTS is basically guilty of market manipulation... within an unregulated market.

Respectfully,
-Wolf

Was gonna DM you because the more I hear you rant, the more I’m convinced you truly don’t believe this is wrong and think you did nothing wrong, but I'll post publicly as you posted publicly. I obviously have the other opinion (as do many of the smart traders/investors I’m asking about this), so we’ll never reach consensus. I’ll just leave my opinion here, you can take it for what you will, and I’ll quit posting about it.

I know TA extensively, which is why I find it all so troubling, and think your points about TA are only strengthening my case. The reason is because you worked with a huge group (~750 people) to create the illusion of a technical setup to get other traders outside of your group in. Combining the private pump with the public pump, then forcing the price into an upward channel by controlling when the entire group buys/sells is market manipulation, straight from the definition of it.

This is different from posting a picture of TA and letting followers figure it out. You know the influence you have over that group, and you know by telling people in the group to buy you are CREATING the indicators which people then buy/sell off of.

Taking a step back from just you doing it and focusing on the bigger picture of groups manipulating breakouts, there isn't anything that can be done to stop it in an unregulated free market, the only solution is for everyone to act as ethically as they can. That obviously puts people in a prisoner's dilemma where it is more profitable for defectors to act unethically, but you are making enough money from your group that you can afford to be completely above reproach. Let's just go our separate ways, you take what I wrote to heart, and try to be better.

Of course what Jihan/Dimon did is also manipulation, and what they did is actually illegal (spreading FUD is against the law) whereas this seems to be a legal gray area although it’s certainly frowned upon. It sucks we have no power to stop any of it, but decentralization has it's pros and cons.

I sincerely wish you and your followers GL.

"Shilling" aka spreading exposure about a catalyst / event / news is common, legal and completely ethical. I'm not making people pump into a coin, I'm simply spreading exposure to news that is coming out to a certain coin and back it with sources + evidence. Usually people buy in, because it sounds good. If it didn't sound good, I wouldn't fucking buy into it.. duh. I am not a low-cap 'Pump & Dump' manipulator as you try to make me look like.

People & groups trade, all the time, together. Whalepool, ETHTrader, Twitter, Facebook Groups, etc. This is not illegal. Simply because I tell people how to 'ride the waves' doesn't mean that I am FORCING them to make those orders. Everything is ALWAYS 'Trade at your own risk'. I have no physical control over people's trades within my group. I am simply educating them on how to trade and move the markets. Also, if you look back @ time and look at the charts, the TA didn't even fill out on MTL. So you're a fucking retard for even trying to use that example. It just strengthens my position and makes you look like the tool that you are.

Maybe you should take a step back and just realize how fucking retarded your article is. Instead of going after REAL scam artists and scumbags, you come after me.... a fucking 'White Knight' of the community.

I'm also being rude in this article because I just uncovered that you, yourself, were BANNED from high-stakes FF leagues for unethical practices.

You truly are a complete piece of shit.

Fuck you,
-Wolf

P.S. I'm spreading this shit everywhere.

https://rotogrinders.com/threads/daut44-makeitrain84-allegedly-colluding-in-milly-maker-to-have-300-entries-1371841

Some guy who had a vendetta against me called me out, draftkings investigated, and said we were in the clear. Be my guest. I was never banned for it, never given a slap on the wrist, and it's not like I went to prison for any wrongdoing I was a part of. It was a commonplace practice that many did, that afterwards we changed due to public opinion. Just like what you're doing here.

Your scheme failing to work is not indicative of it being right or wrong. You tried to manipulate how the charts looked, failed, and the price didn't do what you attempted.

I'll just leave this here one last time:

Market manipulation is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market and create artificial, false or misleading appearances with respect to the price of, or market for, a product, security, commodity or currency.

Again, the more I hear you talk, the more it sounds like you don't actually think it was wrong. So again, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, and just leaving you with my, and other smart trader/investors opinion on the matter.

Information is not knowledge.

- Albert Einstein

This entire article has been debunked.

https://twitter.com/WolfOfPoloniex/status/909922083924250624

Thanks for the publicity.

Love,
-Wolf

WolfOfPoloniex The Wolf tweeted @ 18 Sep 2017 - 23:28 UTC

Ok, ok... 1 last point..

  1. This isn't called "Market-manipulation"... It's called "Market-Making". It is NOT ille… twitter.com/i/web/status/9…
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.

I think maybe this Wolf character deserves to go to the Dr and get one of these treatments, whether or not he has any of the conditions listed here!

https://steemit.com/health/@wanderingmind/kinda-gross-but-effective-extreme-probiotic-transplants

What did you expect? That's what happens when you try to deregulate everything. A shady jackass will steal people's money.