South Korean regulators are investigating value fluctuations of the altcoin AVAIL on Bithumb last month “on suspicion of price manipulation.”
The probe is the first to be conducted under the terms of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, which came into force on July 18.
AVAIL: Bithumb Price Spike in Late July
The act gives regulators, such as the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS)’s Virtual Asset Investigation Bureau, powers to investigate suspected price manipulation cases on the nation’s registered crypto exchanges.
The bureau wants to probe AVAIL price rises on exchange Bithumb on July 23-24. In this period, the coin’s price shot up by 1383% in just 15 minutes.
Regulators say that an unnamed investor (dubbed “A”) “led” a flurry of AVAIL transactions on Bithumb.
They noted that AVAIL prices stood at $0.17 per coin at 10 PM on July 23rd. Prices then “soared nearly 15-fold to around $2.56 in 15 minutes,” Chosun Ilbo reported.
The token later “plummeted to [$0.21] at around 7 PM the next day, less than a day later,” the newspaper added.
Investigators are concerned that while AVAIL prices were shooting up and down on Bithumb, they remained stable on other platforms – hovering around the $0.15 mark.
The FSS thinks that A bought “a large amount of AVAIL from overseas vendors” and then “led trading on Bithumb.”
The regulator says that A’s crypto wallet details showed that A held about 1.17 million AVAIL coins at one point.
This accounted for “about 75% of the 1.55 million AVAIL tokens held on Bithumb at the time.”
Suspect Used Social Media to Raise Capital, Regulator Believes
The regulator further believes that A used social media-based fundraising efforts to drive his purchasing efforts.
Investigators say that A told his 22,000 social media followers that he would pay them back at a premium after his AVAIL trading exploits were over.
The media outlet said that A’s social media channels are “well-known” in the South Korean crypto community.
Investigators think the owners of a total of 119 wallets sent funds to A. They think he raised over 1.2 million AVAIL coins.
They think he was able to “return” high profits to his investors, while “collecting a commission for himself.”
On August 5 at UTC 15:30, AVAIL was trading for around $0.09 on the Bithumb exchange.
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