加密货币做市商：透明度与操纵

在加密货币世界中，做市商在确保流动性和提供稳定的交易环境方面发挥着至关重要的作用。然而，不道德的做市商采取操纵行为，例如清洗交易和拉高抛售计划，以抬高代币价格并制造交易量假象。因此，加密货币项目经常聘请做市商来提高其绩效指标并满足交易所上市要求。然而，欧盟等司法管辖区的监管发展旨在通过严格处罚和要求透明度来遏制洗钱交易和其他非法行为。

Few ordinary crypto holders understand the role of market makers.

At the simplest level, market makers provide liquidity to keep assets tradable in the cryptocurrency market, ensuring that if a user tries to buy or sell a coin on a particular exchange, they’re usually able to.

很少有普通加密货币持有者了解做市商的作用。从最简单的层面来说，做市商提供流动性以保持资产在加密货币市场上的可交易性，确保如果用户试图在特定交易所买卖代币，他们通常会被交易。能够。

However, unethical market makers also manipulate token prices, inflate volumes and conduct pump and dumps.

然而，不道德的做市商也操纵代币价格、夸大交易量并进行拉高和抛售。

Many cryptocurrency projects hire them to goose their performance metrics using strategies like wash trading, which is where entities repeatedly trade the same asset back and forth to create the illusion of volume. In traditional markets, this is illegal market manipulation, misleading investors about the demand for a particular asset.

Mathias Beke，Kairon Labs 许多加密货币项目聘请他们使用洗售交易等策略来提高绩效指标，洗售交易是指实体反复来回交易同一资产以创造交易量的假象。在传统市场中，这是非法的市场操纵，误导投资者对特定资产的需求。

“A lot of [token] projects are fooling their own trader community or investors by faking these wash trades or these volumes,” says Mathias Beke, co-founder and head of trading at Belgium-based market maker Kairon Labs.

总部位于比利时的做市商 Kairon Labs 的联合创始人兼交易主管 Mathias Beke 表示：“许多[代币]项目通过伪造这些虚假交易或交易量来愚弄自己的交易者社区或投资者。”

He adds that these cowboys give legitimate market makers a bad name but says global regulatory developments are progressively making it more difficult for such businesses to thrive.

他补充说，这些牛仔给合法做市商带来了坏名声，但他表示，全球监管的发展正在逐渐使此类企业更难蓬勃发展。

Hard data on the extent of wash trading is difficult to come by. Bitwise famously reported in 2019 that 95% of the volume on unregulated exchanges was fake. A more recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in December 2022 found that the figure had eased to around 70%.

有关清洗交易程度的硬数据很难获得。 Bitwise 在 2019 年发表了一篇著名的报告，称不受监管的交易所 95% 的交易量都是假的。美国国家经济研究局 (NBER) 2022 年 12 月的一项最新研究发现，这一数字已降至 70% 左右。

Yang Yang, a co-author of the NBER study, tells Magazine that properly regulated exchanges accounted for less than 3% of spot market transactions, according to the research.

NBER 研究报告的合著者 Yang Yang 告诉杂志，根据该研究，受到适当监管的交易所占现货市场交易的比例不到 3%。

Regulated exchanges, as defined under New York’s crypto BitLicense, comply with stringent requirements around Anti-Money Laundering programs and customer information record-keeping, and they have a disaster recovery system.

根据纽约加密货币 BitLicense 的定义，受监管的交易所遵守反洗钱计划和客户信息记录保存的严格要求，并且拥有灾难恢复系统。

Since BitLicense debuted in New York, other financial hubs around the world — such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai — have enforced strict licensing requirements of their own.

自从 BitLicense 在纽约推出以来，新加坡、香港和迪拜等世界各地的其他金融中心都执行了自己严格的许可要求。

“In an unregulated exchange, you can immediately spot that their economic indicators are so far away from the regulated market,” Yang says.

And that’s where the illicit market makers ply their dark trade.

杨说：“在不受监管的交易所，你可以立即发现他们的经济指标与受监管的市场相差甚远。”而这正是非法做市商进行黑暗交易的地方。

Market makers and liquidity provision

It’s important to differentiate between the two main types of market makers. Exchange market makers focus on creating a stable, liquid trading environment for a particular cryptocurrency exchange. 

做市商和流动性供应 区分两种主要类型的做市商非常重要。交易所做市商专注于为特定的加密货币交易所创造稳定、流动性的交易环境。

Token market makers, by contrast, are often engaged by the issuers of the tokens themselves. Their primary objective is to ensure liquidity for a specific token, particularly in its early stages or during periods of low trading volume.

相比之下，代币做市商通常由代币发行者本身参与。他们的主要目标是确保特定代币的流动性，特别是在其早期阶段或交易量较低的时期。

This type of market-making can help newer tokens gain traction and visibility in a crowded market.

这种类型的做市可以帮助新代币在拥挤的市场中获得吸引力和知名度。

But what some token projects hope to get from market makers and what the legitimate firms provide are often at odds.

Jelle Buth，Enflux 但一些代币项目希望从做市商那里得到的东西和合法公司提供的东西往往是不一致的。

“Generally, what [token projects] look for is they think that a market maker is there to create volume, increase price and do pump and dumps,” Jelle Buth, co-founder of market maker Enflux, tells Magazine. 

做市商 Enflux 的联合创始人 Jelle Buth 告诉杂志：“一般来说，[代币项目]寻找的是他们认为做市商是为了创造交易量、提高价格并进行拉高和抛售。”

“But that is completely incorrect.”

“但这是完全错误的。”

He explains that a market maker’s role is to make assets tradable by providing liquidity and maintaining a healthy order book, which contains all the buy and sell orders for an asset. 

他解释说，做市商的作用是通过提供流动性和维护健康的订单簿（其中包含资产的所有买卖订单）来使资产可交易。

By placing orders on both sides of the book, they ensure that there’s always a match available for incoming orders, which enhances the asset’s liquidity.

通过在账簿的两侧下订单，他们确保传入的订单始终有可用的匹配，从而增强了资产的流动性。

Market makers offer to buy (bid) and sell (ask) a crypto asset at different prices. The difference between these two prices is known as the spread.

做市商提出以不同的价格购买（出价）和出售（询问）加密资产。这两个价格之间的差异称为点差。

A narrower spread generally indicates a more liquid market, whereas a wider spread suggests less liquidity and higher trading costs.

价差较小通常表明市场流动性较高，而价差较大则表明流动性较低且交易成本较高。

“It’s a market maker’s role to make this as tight as possible, while of course keeping in mind it not being a largely loss-making activity.”

“做市商的职责是尽可能严格控制，同时当然要记住这不是一项主要亏损的活动。”

A narrow bid-ask spread is often accompanied by solid market depth, which refers to the available quantity of buy and sell orders at different price levels within an order book at a given moment.

狭窄的买卖差价通常伴随着坚实的市场深度，市场深度是指在给定时刻订单簿中不同价格水平的买入和卖出订单的可用数量。

Market depth can also gauge an asset’s ability to absorb large orders without significant price shifts.

市场深度还可以衡量资产在不发生重大价格变动的情况下吸收大订单的能力。

A market maker is expected to maintain liquidity without compromising profits. 

做市商应在不影响利润的情况下维持流动性。

According to Buth, there are two primary business models for token projects: the service model, where market makers receive set payments for creating a liquid trading environment, and the loan option model.

币安上加密货币交易对的传播和深度。 （CoinGecko）据 Buth 称，代币项目有两种主要商业模式：服务模式（做市商通过创建流动性交易环境获得固定付款）和贷款期权模式。

In a loan option model, a market maker borrows a certain amount of tokens from a crypto project with an agreement the tokens are initially priced at a set rate. These tokens are used to provide liquidity but often come with a primary goal of turning a profit, Buth says.

在贷款期权模型中，做市商从加密项目借入一定数量的代币，并达成协议，代币最初按设定利率定价。布斯说，这些代币用于提供流动性，但通常以盈利为主要目标。

Market manipulation and loan option incentives

For instance, consider a market maker that borrows 100,000 tokens from a cryptocurrency project at $1 per token. 

市场操纵和贷款期权激励 例如，假设一家做市商以每个代币 1 美元的价格从加密货币项目借入 100,000 个代币。

This isn’t just a straightforward loan. It comes with a built-in option for the market maker to settle the loan at the end of an agreed period by returning an equivalent number of tokens at the same price of $1 each, regardless of the current market price. 

这不仅仅是一笔简单的贷款。它为做市商提供了一个内置选项，可以在约定期限结束时以每个 1 美元的相同价格返还同等数量的代币来结算贷款，而不管当前的市场价格如何。

During the loan period, the market maker sells these tokens in the open market to provide liquidity, potentially profiting if the token price rises.

在贷款期间，做市商在公开市场上出售这些代币以提供流动性，如果代币价格上涨，则可能获利。

Ideally, the market maker would have retained the proceeds from selling the tokens at higher market prices during the loan period.

理想情况下，做市商将保留在贷款期间以较高市场价格出售代币的收益。

At the end of the loan period, they can use some of these proceeds to buy back the tokens at the current market price if needed, or they might already have the tokens available to return. They can then settle the loan at $1 per token, which can be profitable if the repurchase price is less than the sale price during the loan period.

在贷款期结束时，如果需要，他们可以使用其中的部分收益以当前市场价格回购代币，或者他们可能已经拥有可归还的代币。然后，他们可以以每个代币 1 美元的价格结算贷款，如果在贷款期间回购价格低于销售价格，则可以盈利。

This allows them to cover their obligation while potentially making a profit. It also allows the market maker to manage their risk by knowing in advance the maximum price they will need to pay to return the borrowed tokens, while the token issuer benefits from the liquidity and market presence during the loan period.

这使他们能够在履行义务的同时获得潜在利润。它还允许做市商通过提前了解归还借来的代币所需支付的最高价格来管理风险，而代币发行者则可以从贷款期间的流动性和市场存在中受益。

The downside of the loan option for projects is the lack of control over their own tokens. Buth says:

项目贷款选择的缺点是缺乏对自己代币的控制。布斯 说：

“I’m not saying they always do, but there is an incentive for them to trade unethically [and] manipulate markets in order to reap the most profits, rather than there being an incentive to create a healthy market or trading environment.”

“我并不是说他们总是这样做，但他们有动机进行不道德的交易和操纵市场以获得最大的利润，而不是有动机创造一个健康的市场或交易环境。”

According to Buth, market makers under the token loan model may even artificially suppress the price of a token before the agreement expires, aiming to renew the partnership at a lower price.

Buth表示，代币借贷模式下的做市商甚至可能在协议到期前人为压低代币的价格，旨在以更低的价格续签合作关系。

“The moment the agreement is renewed, they allow the price to go up significantly,” Buth adds.

“协议续签后，他们就允许价格大幅上涨，”布斯补充道。

The “unethical” market makers

The operator of one of the less salubrious market-making firms, who wishes to remain anonymous — let’s call them MM — says that exchanges have incentivized the use of unethical market makers.

“不道德”的做市商 一家不太健康的做市公司的运营商希望保持匿名（我们称他们为 MM），他表示，交易所鼓励了不道德的做市商的使用。

“Exchanges have unspoken requirements where the project must exceed a certain amount of daily trading volume, and this creates an incentive for projects to inflate their trading volumes,” according to MM.

“交易所有不言而喻的要求，即项目必须超过一定的每日交易量，这会激励项目夸大其交易量，”MM 表示。

MM says token projects approach their services to list on exchanges, whether that be on decentralized or centralized platforms.

MM 表示，代币项目通过其服务在交易所上市，无论是在去中心化平台还是中心化平台上。

The source declines to elaborate on how a listing is achieved but says their market maker does things “competitors don’t.”

该消息人士拒绝详细说明如何实现上市，但表示他们的做市商做了“竞争对手不做的事情”。

According to screenshots of documents seen by Magazine, some of the services MM offers, or offered, include unethical and potentially illegal tactics to boost price and volume, such as front-running news events and wash trading.

根据杂志看到的文件截图，MM 提供或提供的一些服务包括不道德和潜在非法的策略来提高价格和交易量，例如抢先新闻事件和虚假交易。

This is “clearly unethical,” Beke of Kairon Labs says of the tactics, and he refuses to call businesses that provide such services “market makers.”

Kairon Labs 的 Beke 在谈到这种策略时表示，这“显然是不道德的”，他拒绝将提供此类服务的企业称为“做市商”。

“This, in the long run, will only hurt investors and traders because they are caught up in these volatile moves,” says Beke, adding that potential clients are often disappointed when his firm doesn’t offer volume and price-pumping services.

贝克表示：“从长远来看，这只会伤害投资者和交易员，因为他们陷入了这些波动性的波动之中。”他补充说，当他的公司不提供成交量和价格上涨服务时，潜在客户往往会感到失望。

Exchanges crack down on shadowy crypto market makers

Asal Alizade, head of operations at Web3 consulting firm Blocklogica, confirms MM’s contention that trading volume is one of the most important factors for projects to get listed on centralized exchanges. However, exchanges are also on the lookout for manipulation.

交易所打击影子加密货币做市商 Web3 咨询公司 Blocklogica 运营主管 Asal Alizade 证实了 MM 的观点，即交易量是项目在中心化交易所上市的最重要因素之一。然而，交易所也在警惕操纵行为。

“In top-tier exchanges, if the project doesn’t maintain the requirements and can’t fulfill the minimum trading volume for a specific period, or doesn’t meet the terms and conditions of that exchange and shows unethical practices such as pumping and dumping the token, or manipulating the price, the token will be delisted,” Alizade tells Magazine.

“在顶级交易所，如果项目不符合要求，无法满足特定时期的最低交易量，或者不符合该交易所的条款和条件，并表现出拉高和拉高等不道德行为，抛售代币或操纵价格，该代币将被摘牌。”Alizade 告诉杂志。

“Top-tier exchanges will not only check the legal documents of the token, including licenses and legal opinion but also check the organic community of the project and evaluate the strength of this community, including the project’s social channels,” she adds.

布斯表示，交易所上市要求也有助于健康的市场。 （Unsplash）“顶级交易所不仅会检查代币的法律文件，包括许可证和法律意见书，还会检查项目的有机社区并评估这个社区的实力，包括项目的社交渠道，”她补充道。

The exchanges Magazine speaks with outline proactive steps they take to weed out bad actors. 

《交易所》杂志概述了他们为清除不良行为者而采取的积极措施。

“The crypto ecosystem is highly competitive, and it’s not uncommon for participants to fabricate data to stay ahead of the curve,” Ryan Lee, chief analyst of Bitget Research, tells Magazine.

Bitget Research 首席分析师 Ryan Lee 告诉杂志：“加密生态系统竞争非常激烈，参与者伪造数据以保持领先地位的情况并不罕见。”

“On Bitget, the trading volumes are real, including transactions from retail traders, institutional clients and market makers. One of our predominant strategies to prevent wash trading is an updated platform algorithm that strikes out any form of price indifference,” Lee says.

“在 Bitget 上，交易量是真实的，包括来自零售交易者、机构客户和做市商的交易。我们防止清洗交易的主要策略之一是更新平台算法，消除任何形式的价格冷漠。”Lee 说道。

Vivien Lin, chief product officer of crypto exchange BingX, tells Magazine that crypto platforms are deploying better monitoring systems to identify and mitigate suspicious trading as a result of more regulated entities joining the market. 

加密货币交易所 BingX 首席产品官 Vivien Lin 告诉杂志，由于更多受监管实体加入市场，加密货币平台正在部署更好的监控系统，以识别和减少可疑交易。

“At BingX, we’ve heightened rule enforcement and introduced strict penalties for breaches, in addition to enhancing clearing and settlement processes to combat wash trades,” Lin says.

“在 BingX，除了加强清算和结算流程以打击洗钱交易之外，我们还加强了规则执行力度，对违规行为实行了严格的处罚，”林说。

Bitget declined to comment when asked if exchanges have listing fees or penalties for projects that fail to maintain a certain level of trading volume. BingX says it does not charge listing fees or impose volume requirements.

当被问及交易所是否会对未能维持一定交易量的项目收取上币费或处罚时，Bitget 拒绝发表评论。 BingX 表示，它不收取上市费用，也不施加数量要求。

For ordinary users, it’s difficult to determine the extent of wash trading at any given time. CoinGecko CEO Bobby Ong tells Magazine that the aggregator does not have its own internal mechanism to filter out wash-traded volume. CoinMarketCap did not respond.

对于普通用户来说，很难确定任何特定时间的刷量交易程度。 CoinGecko 首席执行官 Bobby Ong 告诉杂志，聚合器没有自己的内部机制来过滤洗量交易量。 CoinMarketCap 没有回应。

Regulations may curb wash trading and other dark practices

The European Union has introduced its Markets in Crypto-Assets regulatory framework, which was published on June 9, 2023, in the Official Journal of the European Union and took effect 20 days later. Full compliance is required by Dec. 30, 2024.

法规可能遏制虚假交易和其他黑暗行为欧盟推出了加密资产市场监管框架，该框架于 2023 年 6 月 9 日在欧盟官方公报上发布，并于 20 天后生效。要求在 2024 年 12 月 30 日之前完全合规。

MiCA prohibits behaviors considered market manipulation, including conducting transactions that give false or misleading signals about a crypto asset’s supply, demand or price. Wash trading falls under this definition.

MiCA 禁止被视为市场操纵的行为，包括进行对加密资产的供应、需求或价格发出虚假或误导性信号的交易。清洗交易属于这个定义。

“No one can advertise this due to regulations like MiCA,” MM says. “Most market makers are regulated now, so you will start seeing less and less of [unethical services], but there are bad actors out there that will always be willing to do anything a client asks for.”

“由于 MiCA 等法规，没有人可以为此做广告，”MM 说。 “大多数做市商现在都受到监管，所以你会开始看到越来越少的[不道德服务]，但那里有一些不良行为者，他们总是愿意做客户要求的任何事情。”

Buth of Enflux believes that dodgy market makers will simply move offshore.

Enflux 的布斯认为，狡猾的做市商只会转移到海外。

“I think that regulation is for sure good, [and] it should move there, but I still think there are always ways as long as there’s demand for unethical practices,” Buth says.

“我认为监管肯定是好的，[并且]应该向那里转移，但我仍然认为只要有不道德行为的需求，总有办法，”布斯说。

Yohan Yun

Yohan Yun is a multimedia journalist covering blockchain since 2017. He has contributed to crypto media outlet Forkast as an editor and has covered Asian tech stories as an assistant reporter for Bloomberg BNA and Forbes. He spends his free time cooking, and experimenting with new recipes.

Yohan Yun 自 2017 年以来一直是一位报道区块链的多媒体记者。他曾担任加密货币媒体 Forkast 的编辑，并作为 Bloomberg BNA 和 Forbes 的助理记者报道亚洲科技故事。他利用空闲时间做饭并尝试新食谱。另请阅读