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Comment by deejaaymac | Hacker News Reader

> "highly regulated"

In favor of whom? Because I don't think it's in favor of the average American. IMHO, highly regulated would mean that 1. stock exchanges can't halt trading (eg robinhood) 2. People in positions of power (eg Nancy Pelosi) wouldn't be able to make any money from the stock market.

Obviously, coinbase can stop trading on their platform, but I don't have to use them or even need an exchange to trade on. The only insider trading on BTC would be lawmakers or a whale attempting to alter the price.

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This isn’t my area of expertise by any stretch but it seems to me the important word you left out in the quote is “comparatively highly regulated”. Surely the SEC has flaws but it is still more regulated than the crypto space

Fair point, but I don't think 'crypto' or blockchains should be regulated at all so I didn't think it was necessary to include the entire phrase. Thank you for pointing out the flaw in my reply.

For sure, my callout above is really irrelevant to your point of “who the regulation benefits” (which seem good to me). I’m a bit saddened as well “crypto is being regulated” because it seems to cut across the grain of the whole point of decentralization - but I don’t know how any of this stuff works! (web3, taxes, financial regulation in the Gov. etc) I do, however, feel that if crypto exchanges are being marketed to the public as “the future” via Super Bowl ads there should _probably_ be some sort of “safeguards” in place. But have no suggestions for what that may look like.

Stock exchanges only halt trading in very limited circumstances. If you're referring to the GME debacle no stock exchange forced Robinhood to halt trading; that was entirely on the broker.

I won't attempt to defend Rep. Pelosi but what she is doing isn't insider trading. She isn't an insider for any corporation that she and her husband traded on. Instead she is using political power to manipulate stock prices from the outside. This type of naked corruption should be banned, but let's not confuse the issue with inaccurate labels.

I must have misunderstood the GME situation then. To me it seemed like a situation where average Americans could have made profit, but were stopped by people with bigger bags. I tried to sell my shares (for a very nice profit) but I was stopped from doing so, so yeah I feel cheated.

Thanks for bringing up the incorrect label, I can't think of a better one at the moment but I guess I included lawmakers with the label since they may have access to information we don't, so from my perspective it may as well be insider trading, but you're right about the label.

Yes you misunderstood. Read the actual SEC report. And don't risk your finances with shady start-up companies run by idiots and grifters.

https://www.sec.gov/page/sec-staff-release-gamestop-report

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