[twayamznacct]

For your question in (2)... Wash trading?

Some of the exchanges have zero fees for high enough volume on some trading pairs... and if an exchange themselves are running wash trades it's not like they'd be paying their own fees anyways.

[jstanley]

And how does that increase the price?

[twayamznacct]

I was going to be smarmy and post a lmgtfy link with the contents "Wash trading price increase" but decided against it.

There's a reason why wash trading is regulated against.