Overview
- Chainalysis identified over 90,000 potential pump and dump schemes involving Ethereum ERC-20 tokens in 2023, netting scammers $241.6 million in total.
- 54% of new Ethereum tokens showed patterns indicative of pump and dump schemes, but they accounted for only 1.3% of total DEX trading volume.
- A single wallet was found to orchestrate 81 pump and dump schemes, grossing $830,000 in profit.
- Market manipulators often used wash trading to artificially boost a token's trading volume before pulling liquidity.
- Chainalysis emphasizes the importance of on-chain data for identifying potential pump and dump schemes, urging investors to exercise due diligence.