As reported by TechCrunch, their research calls attention to the potential risk of price manipulation and fraud withing cryptocurrencies. "If bitcoin wants to be taken seriously it probably shouldn't be this easy or legal to manipulate the markets," writes John Biggs for the publication. Bitcoins price may have been manipulated by traders seeking to shoot the price up with suspicious activity. New research found suspicious activity in the years-old transaction logs of the ill-fated Mt. Gox exchange, which went from handling 70 percent of all bitcoin transactions to declaring bankruptcy in 2014 after losing over 800,000 bitcoins. It appears a number of accounts automatically pushed the price up with bot-powered trades.