Wash sales are where pumpers use multiple trading accounts to trade back and forth with each other, giving the illusion of real trading volume and interest in the stock. They tightly control the trading shares and the price action this way. The high trading volume, in combination with an email or hard mailer campaign, attracts investors to the stock, and the pumpers slowly sell their shares to those investors while the price inches up. This is why you get that day-after-day of green "stair step" effect just like you got on GNIN. Once they are done selling most of their shares, the pumpers pull their bid support, and the stock suffers a massive crash within minutes to hours.
The recent seeking alpha piece on GNIN actually listed the brokers that the GNIN pumpers have used in the past.
