Wash Trading and safe trading practices guide

Wash trading happens when the same person, or a small group, buys and sells an NFT back and forth to create fake volume. The charts look busy, the floor price seems to climb and new buyers rush in. Once the real buyers arrive, the sellers leave and the price falls.

You do not need to be an expert to protect yourself. A few quick checks before every purchase will filter out most bad deals.

Signs of wash trading

• The same few wallets trade one item many times in a short period
• Big volume but very few unique holders
• Sales at round prices right after a token reward is announced
• A sudden spike with no news, posts or community talk behind it

Most explorers and marketplaces show the full trade history of an item. Open it and look at the wallets. If one address sold to another and bought it back days later, take that as a warning.

Safe trading habits

• Buy only from the official contract address shared by the project
• Use a separate wallet for minting and keep long term pieces in a hardware wallet
• Never sign a message you do not understand
• Check the number of unique holders, not only the volume

Volume tells you how many times something changed hands. Holders tell you how many people actually believe in it.

Andry Moray, Blockchain Lead

How Nerko helps

Our dashboard highlights items with repeated trades between the same wallets and shows the real holder count beside every collection. We also publish our own contract address on X and Discord before every drop, so you always know where to mint.

Trade with care, ask questions in the community and remember that a good collection will still be there tomorrow.