So let’s discuss who are interested parties in insider trading for different asset classes
For equities, the large institutional shareholders are always interested in pushing the price up. Coupled that with corporate owners who at times cook their books to raise valuations for their business. Some of them also go to the extent of playing in their own stock using the cash flow from their business. So Equities can be manipulated by large shareholder / group of shareholders / owners or a combination of all.
In case of currencies, the governments & central banks of respective countries can manipulate using policy intervention. Large banks & hedge funds trading forex can influence the price too.
In case if commodities, it’s largely manipulated by group of large commodity hedge funds who build commodity super cycles. They build heavily concentrated derivative positions & move markets in their favor at their wish
In terms of crypto, it’s a fragmented market, most of the manipulation is done by so called “whales” or a group of “whales”.
Crypto market is manipulated mostly by large “whale” groups that includes some exchange operators. Some of the exchanges have printed their own crypto which they can use to BUY other crypto and using their privilege to see order books across the isle they have the advantage over the others to manipulate the markets as they wish. It’s some kind of a cartelisation at the moment. Can’t say who are the players but most market participants know them. So some exchange operators are part of the “whale cartel”. Basically anyone with a large bag of money can be a whale so there are plenty of large, medium, small and mini whales in crypto. Those who are insiders with whales are making plenty of money. Now let’s try to understand how the world of whale operates.
For whales to operate in crypto markets, they need to have an access to truck load of coins at next to nothing prices. They started with bitcoin in 2011 when the prices were in double digits. They acquired truck loads and manipulated the prices to 4 digits and dumped it all only to settle in a 3 digit price range for years before again acquiring bitcoin for low 3 digit numbers. They managed to go to 5 digits (20,000 USD) and dump it all again between 5 & 4 digits (5900 USD low) So essentially for them to play this trick again and again they need to restock their trucks with cheaper coins. Earlier they had very few options so bitcoin was always their target. Now they have more than 2000 cryptocurrencies to play with. They managed to take Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, NEO to heights and dumped them as well. At this moment, looking at the scenario, it’s clear they don’t have much left in their kitty to sell. They managed to dump every possible coin they had in their bag. So now they have two options. Either print new cryptocurrencies, hype them and dump them or crash the market, and restock everything that they sold high. They may not get everything at cheaper prices but they may still get good enough chunk to motivate them to pump the majors again. Their game will be mainly on ALT side since that’s where they can print new coins and create unlimited supply of new money out of thin air. The whole idea will be crash the market, restock majors, hype new Alts, Pump then & Dump them. Rinse & repeat. Not really bad business to be in. Planning to become a whale? Need some training ? Have shitload of cash ? Well go ahead and be one