Ask HN: Is insider trading law enforcable at all in 2021? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is insider trading law enforcable at all in 2021?

8 pointsmnming6 comments

Recently I keep wondering, with proper encrypted communication and cryptocurrency. Is insider trading law enforcement even possible?

If the law enforcement could not prove: - There was communication happened. - There was big money transfer happened.

What can they do?

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They will never catch all of them, but they will catch some of them and nail them to the wall really good. (e.g. Martha Stewart)

If anything the privacy of Bitcoin is worse than conventional finance. In the case of Bitcoin the transaction log is in the record so anybody (the mafia, North Korea, ...) can find somebody connected with a transaction, put the squeeze on them till they talk, ...

In the case of conventional finance the feds can do that but they have to fill out a lot of paperwork, spend a lot of money, etc.

People rarely get caught for insider trading because someone overhears them or reads an email. I suspect it's usually the schmucks who can't come with anything but the most basic stuff and then suddenly some decision maker's sister,who works in nail salon, suddenly buys a whole heap of stocks of this niche pharmaceutical firm...

Two different things. Cryptocurrency is lacking regulation. Insider trading is a broad and ambiguous term up to the SEC to decide and as I would imagine is a difficult task to prove.

Heard a stat yesterday that of every 1,000 insider trading events reported to the SEC they have time to investigate 1 or 2. Not exactly comforting to "retail investors".

They have lots of tools at their disposal like undercover, snitches, subpoenas, etc.

Cryptos transactions can be traced if exchanges are cooperating. Monero might be a different story.

As long as cheating remains profitable people will cheat. Athletes will take doping, sport bettors will bet on fixed games, and company executives will insider trade.

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