> There is nothing illegal in the activities that I've seen: just people/institutions trading and holding stocks in an open market. This is a bit of an oversim

> There is nothing illegal in the activities that I've seen: just people/institutions trading and holding stocks in an open market. This is a bit of an oversimplification. Market manipulation for instance is forbidden my most regulators, and defined by the SEC as "transactions which create an artificial price or maintain an artificial price for a tradable security". It would not seem irrational that people willingly gathering on internet to buy GME with the explicit objective of crashing hedge funds are considered market manipulators.