Does that actually have anything to do with the problem in the article though? It seems like a standard case of opportunists pulling a pump-and-dump scam to get

Does that actually have anything to do with the problem in the article though? It seems like a standard case of opportunists pulling a pump-and-dump scam to get rich at the cost of victims, and in this case the asset was taxi medallions. You can do that kind of scam on all sorts of things. The guy in the article who took out a loan to buy 15 medallions is an obvious victim of a pump and dump scam: He did something really naive in the hopes of a big investment win. The fact that it happened to be cab medallions isn't particularly important, if it wasn't those it could have been crypto or foreign currency or penny stocks just as easily.