By Sharon Brown-Hruska, Jordan Milev and Trevor Wagener (May 25, 2018, 12:42 PM EDT) -- The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission have launched a criminal investigation into potential cryptocurrency market manipulation, according to May 24, 2018, news reports. Reports indicate the investigations are looking into possible spoofing — the submission of orders that aren't intended to execute to affect other participants' orders — and wash trading — trading between two accounts controlled by the same person or entity to affect market perceptions of demand or liquidity — in cryptocurrency spot markets.[1] These reports come a few months after the DOJ and CFTC announced a series of coordinated criminal and civil enforcement actions targeting "commodities fraud and spoofing schemes"[2] that the DOJ called "the largest futures market criminal enforcement action" ever.[3] The DOJ announcement highlighted market surveillance, emphasizing that the DOJ and CFTC "have developed the ability to identify spoofing patterns through sophisticated analysis of market-level data" and the DOJ and CFTC "expect to use data analysis to an even greater degree in order to identify fraudulent and manipulative conduct in our financial markets."[4]...