1) Lone traders can do HFT, you'll get collocated at most exchanges for a couple $1000 a month. 2) You don't need to be have automated high frequency trading i

1) Lone traders can do HFT, you'll get collocated at most exchanges for a couple $1000 a month. 2) You don't need to be have automated high frequency trading infrastructure and algorithms to spoof (though that would help a lot), you could do it by hand. 3) Agreed it would be ridiculous to blame this guy for the entire thing, but he did break the law (and the rules of the exchange) so there is something to be said about prosecuting him. 4) Laws and rules against spoofing are always going to be stealthily broken, and they are frustratingly vague, referring to the intangible "intention" of the trader. Exchanges would be better off removing such rules and let algo-traders take the responsibility of writing spoofing-resistant strategies. Allowing spoofing could even help improve execution. If a trader wants to execute a big order, it would be easier to just place it on the market and they wouldn't tip their hand as much. Other traders would have to guess if it's real or spoofed. 5) Another part of the problem is the asynchronous nature of order books. That's where 99% of the need for collocation comes from. You're trying to control your order in reaction to incoming information in an asynchronous way. Letting trading algos run in a round-robin fashion inside the order book would eliminate a lot of those issues.