Why? Wash trading is about selling and then requiring the same asset for tax purposes. How is this analogous, other than that you presumably dislike both practices?

In crypto, wash trading usually refers to the practice of exchanges or project creators colluding to trade the same asset back and forth in order to make the volume/liquidity/popularity look greater than it is.

- "Our coin hit $100M daily volume, get on this rocketship before it's too late!"

- "Our exchange does $1B annually, so you know we're trustworthy!"

- "Hey investors, look at the massive demand for our GPUs (driven by the company we invested $100B)!"