It also works when you own the exchange. There's pretty good reason to believe wash trading is happening at several exchanges...possibly performed by the exchan

It also works when you own the exchange. There's pretty good reason to believe wash trading is happening at several exchanges...possibly performed by the exchange themselves. I'm more willing to believe Bitfinex is doing the BTC wash trading that's happening on their exchange, rather than some whale doing it (the very close connection between Tether and Bitfinex, sharing several founders and C-levels, makes this seem even more likely).