It would be shocking if there was not manipulation in a completely unregulated market. We can't stop manipulation in regulated markets, without any rules it's the wild west.
Many businesses are illegal. This appears to be insider trading and worse on a large scale. Its survival is probably dependent on how quickly it can buy-in regulators.
This is a great example of something that just boggles my mind. With all the regulation out there (on financial stuff in this case), how do people naturally come to the conclusion that such a scheme bypassing them is not illegal? (genuine question; not disparaging you)
But the rules of stock market is not law. If this was legal then you could do any sort of money laundering, so why authorities turn the blind eye to this?
illegal, sure. But let's say there are some very bad actors involved... would it be possible? People have been known to do illegal things in finance and have tried to cover their tracks in the past.
At what point does it become illegal though. Surely if Goldman can trade then there must be some aggregation that they are allowed to trade at. "Debt consolidation" search trends for example. If it spikes in a certain country then they would be able to make decisions on that.
I work in a Hedge Fund: my first reaction reading this article was to wonder how someone can be so stupid to even try something like that. Then I read your comment and realize that in fact, the rest of the world (people not in Finance) actually think that you can get away with this. He probably thought that everybody is doing it, so why not? Well, turns out that no, you can't do that, and yes, you can and will get prosecuted for it.
So no message sent to Wall Street, we got that memo a long long time ago. Geeks thinking they know everything and disregarding all regulations, however, should take a long, hard look at it. Finance and anything touching it (like securities, which most crypto-currencies are) is very very very heavily regulated.
Sure. That said in most regulatory environments putting orders into a market that you have no intention of trading is illegal. Enforcement and it's impact of profitability on this sort of predatory trading is an issue.
It’s a typical pump-and-dump+market manipulation decision in an unregulated market so it is legal, and highly profitable. It’s not a bad investment, only a moral failing.
I think it might be more accurate to say the laws are not enforced now as the markets are not regulated. That's not the same as legal. I'm not sure market manipulation / insider trading laws are that specific as to which asset you are manipulating as to make crypto ok. There's some talk now about Coinbase insiders trading ahead on bitcoin cash and some debate as to whether they could be done for that. I'd be curious how that plays out.
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