Doesn’t this constitute insider trading? Sincerely hope some redditor takes them to court.
Do insider trading and market manipulation laws apply to crypto, an unregulated speculative asset? This isn’t rhetorical, I’ve no idea.
The federal securities laws do not exempt crypto asset securities from the prohibition against insider trading, nor does the SEC.
Found here: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-98
Yup. Anyone who received this non-public information and then traded based on that information is guilty of insider trading. I would also think that reddit has some liability here, as they shared this information to non-employees.
I am also curious. On the one hand, if you tax any gains from it you should also make sure it operates within some legal framework. On the other hand, would anybody investigate a magic bean salesman for insider trading? Would they rather charge them with scamming?
Edit: I just realized your comment wasn’t directed at the IRS specifically. I’ll leave my comment up because I still find the info interesting.
I think the IRS tries to be agnostic to the legality of income. Yes, taxes are set in accordance with law, but their role isn’t make sure you obtained your income legally or ethically… not that I would trust them not to “tattle”.
Here is an overview on the IRS’s guidance for reporting illegal income:
https://taxfoundation.org/blog/irs-guidance-thieves-drug-dealers-and-corrupt-officials/
Crypto. Is. A. Scam.
It’s, by design, a deflationary asset. There’s a limited amount of it, the difficulty to mine it goes up as there’s more of it, therefore it’s designed to grow in value over time. So since its inception it’s been a scam. Sure, a scam some lucky people have been able to get in on early, but a scam none-the-less.
Worse, it’s value is based on the work it requires to grow/maintain it. And that work is based on how much electricity/world resources it uses. Aka. Bad for the environment. And if you were to make say a new crypto currency that used far less processing power, that would be less work and thus have little value.
In other words, you can’t fix the crypto currency problem of massive energy usage without destroying the value of it. When Bitcoin does die, it will have emitted millions of tons of green house gases while providing very few real services/transactions.
That’s not true at all. That only applies to coins using “proof of work.” Ethereum for example is extremely popular and doesn’t use that. You should really learn more about the topic before spreading misinformation.
Yes I am familiar with that and heard that argument before. It does provide some other functions that can negate some of the proof of work. But it is also subject to proof of work to a lesser degree but that means it will also hit some equilibrium. Will that outweigh the benefits it provides and this be ultimately viable and more important, environmentally viable? With my experience in it, I am dubious.
So gold is a scam? lol
I initially replied but deleted my reply because I wasn’t sure of myself but I’ve looked it up just to be sure and I can reply again in confidence: Gold isn’t deflationary.
Gold is a standard in which remains stable among the currencies when compared to commodity goods. As other currencies inflate, gold also inflates, because it’s somewhat stable. Gold’s value does not increase over time, even though its value in relation to inflating currencies does.
Essentially, as an example but one pulled completely out of my ass here: If bread cost 1 gram of gold 200 years ago, but that was a single shilling but now it takes 1000 shillings to buy bread, gold is now worth “1000 shillings”, but still buys the same bread. So it’s not increasing in value vs the things around it, only other currencies because they are inflating.
Which means that it’s deflationary against euro or usd. Also “there’s a limited amount of it, the difficulty to mine it goes up as there’s more of it”. So according to your definition gold is a scam. I wonder who is going to pull the rug on it.
Wrong. Which means it’s stable, and the USD and EURO are inflationary. That’s why gold is gold. That’s why it’s a staple stock. Because it’s stable against everything that those currencies buy. It will basically, always be worth the same amount as it was 1000 years ago. Gold is the reference of a “stable” value. In the example I made, 1 gram of gold 200 years ago buys the same amount as 1 gram of gold today. That’s exactly how gold works. That’s why economies use it as a measuring stick of their own currency.
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This is not true of all crypto. It is true of bitcoin though.
It’s a cult too. It feeds on hype and marketing so people will say anything to keep the value of their worthless investments up. That’s probably why you’re getting a couple downvotes even though you’re 100% right. Wouldn’t be surprised if some coins got big from bot network spamming.
Edit: they won’t even argue about it, they just keep downvoting. Proves my point exactly.
Crypto is used to scam, it doesn’t mean the technology or the idea is a scam. I find it really ironic how Lemmy seems to hate it so much. I don’t have any investment in it anymore because I don’t like how profit-focused it became but I first got into it for the same reason I’m here on Lemmy, Bitcoin was an open source and federated alternative to money. Anyone could run a node and mine it. No more proprietary apps like PayPal.
While I don’t think we will ever recapture the original spirit the tech had in the early 2010s I do find it quite sad that people think crypto = scam. Is HTTP a scam because scam websites exist? Are phones a scam because scam calls exist? I really wish people would separate the underlying technology (which is actually really cool) and the people using it.
what technology? slower database and you can’t edit it is the TEchnOloGy?
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Next time reddit will cut out the middleman and just sell rugs.
The “fuck spez” rug will be the best seller. When it inevitably gets pulled out from under each buyer they’ll act all shocked, say “better not do that again, spez” and then go right back to standing on it because their friends are all standing on theirs too.
Every time I see a rug pull, I giggle and consider making Rugcoin until I remember that it already exists along with several others, all instantly rugged.
my favorite is $SAFERUG
🐑
There was no way that coin was going to sustain itself like Spez claimed it would.
People weren’t going to buy crypto coins, just to give content creators medals. And the idea that medals would give more power to these people, except not really and only in polls.
This was such a jigsaw puzzle of shit, before you realized that each community was supposed to make their own coin that could only be used in that community.
At that point, it is a coin trying to be as complex as possible, without really doing anything that you paid money for.
a coin trying to be as complex as possible, without really doing anything that you paid money for.
Sums up the state of crypto pretty well
I do think that crypto does have a place in the future, but not as a security, which is the current mindset behind most crypto.
Where others deposit large amounts of wealth into a pile… and that money is supposed to grow infinitely…
That’s not how you use a currency like the USD or British pound are used. Money is a tool for us to understand the value of our items that we exchange or our labor that we create.
It has to circulate like a blood flow through an economy. And crypto is treating it more like a blood clot.
I think cryptocurrency has the best shot at relevance as a medium for internet tipping. Unlike processing most financial transactions its comparatively quite easy to accept tips and donations via cryptocurrency plus it allows very good portability between exchanges if you setup your infrastructure correctly. Almost everything else people and companies try to use it for appears to be nothing more than a grift of some sort, or at the very least profiting off of someone getting grifted
I guess people are just tired of the currently rigged stock market. Wall Street and Hedge Funds have made it such that they never lose. It’s not cool that the SEC is not unbiased and even the U.S. Govt has interest in making anybody lose vs. the incumbents.
Was Spez the one backing crypto? I thought that was Alex Ohanian the other living founder.
Oh no! Unregulated market is bad‽
This is a regulated area, one that the SEC oversees. They’ve prosecuted insider trading on crypto: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-98
So… Reddit employees are being investigated, right?
There’s no way we’ll know this soon but, given there’s been a huge push at the SEC to clamp down on crypto-related financial crimes[1], I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near this debacle.
Before I go, I’ll just leave this link: Report Suspected Securities Fraud or Wrongdoing.
- Dot your i’s and cross your t’s with crypto and dancing with the SEC. LBRY failed to register as a security when they pre-mined and yesterday it sank their company. Charges are pressed in bursts of new cases almost every month.
iT rEgUlAtEs ItSeLf
So does this count as some kind of fraud or insider trading that can be prosecuted by, say, the SEC or CFTC?
Sure does! But nothing will happen, you’re essentially a 100% safe running pump and dump schemes as long as you only rip off poor people.
Check out Coffeezilla’s yt channel, there’s loads of obvious fraudsters out there, nothing ever happens to them.
Wasn’t this information public for days before the dump? I don’t think this can be considered anything illegal if that’s the case, everyone had the same information available. Mods don’t get some sort of special insider preview of most things like this.
When clicking on the article, the line under the title says: “Analysis suggests at least three Reddit moderators dumped thousands of dollars worth of Moons just minutes before the actual announcement.”
Good look for a company positioning to IPO…
Power corrupts, money corrupts, water is wet.
What did we expect from volunteer power positions with crypto?
What does this mean?
it means that filing the proper complaints will get them investigated by the SEC.
It definitely sounds like some sort of insider trading thing.
It’s not a registered security, and reddit isn’t public… but if this is true it must have broken some sort of rule.
Reddit introduced a crypto as a way to monetize Reddit gold so users would get paid for posting. They abruptly cancelled the program after people had already bought into it but it looks like some insiders at Reddit got the news first- they sold their shares before they announced the cancellation. Basically Reddit committed investment fraud.
I’m not sure this is correct.
The community tokens crypto has been around since 2020. I think that’s separate from the new gold monetization scheme.
I don’t really use Reddit anymore, but my understanding was some subreddits had crypto coins, but Reddit withdrew gold and formally started supporting these crypto tokens instead after the API exodus had happened.
That is what I remember as well. After the API change, they did this whole crypto-instead-of-gold announcement.
Are they back to their traditional gold now?
What’s this? You’re telling me that crypto based on Reddit blockchain points—points from a company that’s constantly making rash decisions and removing large features—didn’t end well? And people with inside info were able to get out before this concept failed?
Man, if only someone could’ve seen this coming….
Spez and the whole Reddit company culture seem to be very in touch with the whole crypto
scamindustry. I wouldn’t be surprised if Reddit admins moderate the crypto sub part time and they got in on this.I get the feeling Spez and other Reddit execs tried for years to make money out of reddit seeing only modest returns, then crypto comes on the scene and with conversations on Reddit being a large part of the success. Crypto grifters get in, pump, dump and cash out rich. Spez and other Reddit execs are looking at each other shocked saying “WTF just happened!? A bunch of folks just used the platform we built to get rich and we’re still not! How can we do the same thing they did?”
Reminds of that article about where crypto was speed running through the history of how all The securities rules got written in the first place. This is, of course, insider trading.
Anyone who invests in the Reddit IPO is a sucker.
People are going to short the shit out of it, so the big guys are going to pump it early to milk the retail investors.
Lol.
Reddit migration… $
Fuck spez… $$$
Reddit mods and admins getting fucked by the FTC/SEC… Fucking Priceless.Call me surprised that reddit mods have no morale and ethics.
They should name themself reddit cunts.
Apologies for the crypto website as the article source- it summarized things well and was written by someone who knows a lot about the subject. That being said, if you’re going to invest, invest in something real and tangible.
Lol ain’t no way, so reddit basically just pulled an exit scam?
Must have been refreshing for them to get to dump something after constantly having loads dumped in them.
