# Cartel
An economic cartel use a non-public agreement to restrict the supply or fix the price of an asset. A cartel is a formal type of [market-manipulation](market-manipulation.md). Cartels are considered to be against the public interest because of the potential [asymmetric-information](asymmetric-information.md) to reduce trust in [markets](market.md).

Crypto exchanges operators act as economic cartel which can distort [price formation](price-formation.md). See [stablecoin](stablecoin.md).