I'd like to see proof of that if you have it. I don't believe that Novacoin has been to $20USD before. Am I missing something? How would you have seen those open orders to say such a thing?
Novacoin hasn't been to $20 before, this is correct. I didn't mean that those orders were in the book before today. What I meant is that somebody uses a trading bot to create those orders on the fly (they would be very tedious to enter manually). He's been doing it for a long time and I don't think anybody pays much attention to it, I certainly don't. It's the big orders that move the market.
In case you didn't know it, you can view a larger part of the order book here than on BTC-e itself:
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/orderbook.php?pair=nvc-btc&market=btc-ehttp://www.cryptocoincharts.info/orderbook.php?pair=nvc-usd&market=btc-eAgain, those are closed orders. BTC-e doesn't supply an API of open orders, if I am not mistaken.
You also assume a lot of trust. If BTC-e is manipulating the market I highly doubt they would leave a trail in their publically exposed APIs.
I have a little more faith in criminal enterprise than that, especially with this much money on the line.