It's not an argument of rationality, it's about fairness to the larger market and how easily insiders can abuse access to information. The price of a stock is s

It's not an argument of rationality, it's about fairness to the larger market and how easily insiders can abuse access to information. The price of a stock is supposed to reflect its value, if you act on insider information and sell at the apparent price when it would actually be lower if everybody had access to the same information then it's fraud. Those are the rules you agree to and you have to abide by them, even if it appears irrational. I agree actually that patch writers should have been notified first with specifics, but he should have held on to the stock (if he indeed did sell it based on insider info as accused). Edit: to say it differently, it's only irrational if you consider his personal profit exclusively and not the harm to the greater market and shareholders. As con artists and scammers demonstrate, fraud can be very profitable personally. I think the disadvantages are self-evident, however.