2020/05/04 by Massimo La Morgia, Alessandro Mei, Francesco Sassi +1 · 2 voices
Computer Science · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance #Financial Markets and Investment Strategies #cs.CR #cs.CY #cs.LG #q-fin.ST
paper · pdf · doi:10.1109/icccn49398.2020.9209660
openalex publication_date 2020/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In the last years, cryptocurrencies are increasingly popular. Even people who are not experts have started to invest in these securities and nowadays cryptocurrency exchanges process transactions for over 100 billion US dollars per month. However, many cryptocurrencies have low liquidity and therefore they are highly prone to market manipulation schemes.In this paper, we perform an in-depth analysis of pump and dump schemes organized by communities over the Internet. We observe how these communities are organized and how they carry out the fraud. Then, we report on two case studies related to pump and dump groups. Lastly, we introduce an approach to detect the fraud in real time that outperforms the current state of the art, so to help investors stay out of the market when a pump and dump scheme is in action.