Through a series of interviews with cryptocurrency traders and investors, The Wall Street Journal details how price manipulation is happening with Bitcoin through the use of trading bots. While trading bots exist in traditional financial markets, the main difference in crypto is a lack of regulatory oversight. Established market entities like the NYSE actively monitors for illegal trading efforts, but crypto exchanges will vary widely on how they survey for market manipulation. The most common forms of market manipulation in crypto are:

1. Spoofing, a practice where traders enter fake market orders and canceling them. This practice tricks the market by falsely signaling demand for an asset.
2. Wash trading, a practice where traders simultaneous buy and sell their own orders, creating false trading activities for an asset.

(Source: WSJ)