Unfortunately, frauds have been part of the cryptocurrency world almost since its inception. Various hacks, scams or Ponzi schemes have robbed investors of billions of dollars. However, some of them not only strip investors of money but also manipulate the market. And that was exactly the case of the scam PlusToken, which is probably behind the fall in Bitcoin prices last year. When Bitcoin reached $ 14,000 in August, few expected a few months of downtrend. At the same time, however, only a few assumed that there was going on one of the "most successful" frauds in the cryptocurrency world, even though the investigation of PlusToken founders was already underway.

Only a few days after Bitcoin reached it’s high this year, speculation began to arise that it could be the PlusToken fraudsters who manipulated the price of Bitcoin. Overall, they managed to get up to more than $ 2 billion from “investors”, which at that time represented about 1% of the total value of the cryptocurrency market. In September, October, and November, these people involved in the Ponzi scheme showed us what they are capable of. It was during these months that they were to start selling their BTCs, which meant a significant drop in the Bitcoin price. The whole fraud was uncovered by Chainalysis, who, using techniques like peel chains or tumblers, traced most of the BTCs back to PlusToken scammers. For example, on September 20, a $ 34 million sale of Bitcoin was to be made by fraudsters. According to Chainalysis, this step was to be clearly visible at the Bitcoin price, which fell from $ 10,000 to $ 8,000 between December 24-26. Overall, the BTC price should have fallen due to PlusToken fraudsters in several cases. It should be added, however, that the fact that this happened several times still does not mean that PlusToken really had the ability to influence the market. Correlation does not imply causality, which in this case means that the price of the BTC may have fallen for other reasons. However, the correlation between the sale of BTC by PlusToken and the fall in the price of BTC is at least noteworthy.