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I think pretty much every market has insider trading going on. The difference with Crypto is that because there's an actual record of transactions, there's at

I think pretty much every market has insider trading going on. The difference with Crypto is that because there's an actual record of transactions, there's at least a chance for the public to catch onto shady looking behavior that manipulates the price of an asset. A lot of people falsely think the stock market is heavily regulated and pure. It's not. You can't even find out a definitive answer as to how many shares of a stock currently exist. Crypto is infinitely superior in many respects.

balaji1 4y ago
> there's at least a chance for the public to catch onto shady looking behavior that manipulates the price of an asset but can we do anything about it even if you catch the behavior? other than old-school regulation and litigation? and eventually add checks and balances > You can't even find out a definitive answer as to how many shares of a stock currently exist maybe there are better models of stock exchanges? (hopefully looking at Europe, or at least in the past)
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
How do you think the SEC identifies insider trading? Do you think there's no "actual record of transactions" in non-crypto markets?
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  To give one small point within a very complex and nuanced topic that people could write a hundred books about... Financial disclosures in stocks are typically required to be filed within 30 days. As we know in investing, timing is everything. The financial disclosures that exist IMO mainly serve to placate the masses that there's regulation and are worthless for knowing about actual problems or impending price movement. With crypto, big movement of assets happens on a blockchain and can be observed in real-time. There's at least a chance of catching issues in a way that can't be replicated with stocks.
  - salawat 4y ago
    You have this, so, so wrong. Insider trading isn't X sold stocks at Y. Insider trading is X arranged to sell stocks at Y based off of information disclosed from internal actor Z that was not publically knowable at the time of initial communication. It's about having a traceable privileged internal source that no one else did. Both the source and the trader are then culpable. Nothing about order stream makes it clear insider trading happened. It's about communications and things that happened before the trade that make insider trading. Trading in ones own shares as an executive is often treated with extra care because you are the ultimate insider, and you are also burdened with a responsibility that should prevent you from shorting your own stock (shorting as an exec signals either regulation on the horizon, or somebody hasn't been doing their fiduciary due diligence).
    - logicalmonster 4y ago
      I was responding to the second part of NovemberWhiskey's post. Repeating a dictionary definition of insider trading isn't an interesting point for me so I ignored that part of the post.
School-Cotton 4y ago
> You can't even find out a definitive answer as to how many shares of a stock currently exist. What do you mean? I can google this for any public stock and I get answers; are you claiming they’re wrong?
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  Short selling. Shares are "borrowed" for a fee and flood into the market. Voila, buyers now have to buy a bunch of new shares that shouldn't exist just to keep the price level. Unethical hedge funds have made a living essentially tanking companies by borrowing loads of stock, selling at a high price and flooding the market with far more shares than should exist, tanking the stock price making the company having far more problems raising money (and killing off some of them). The borrowed shares are returned when the price tanks at a much cheaper price. This is bad for the world when it's just some weaker retail outlet being dumped, but devastating if it's some biotech firm researching medical cures being hamstrung. Now, there's supposedly some regulations and disclosures for this like the Short Interest stat that are usually published I think twice a month. But this is time delayed and manipulatable. Here's an interesting anecdote about this in an OTC market: https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/rsaevv/in_march_of_2005_this_guy_bought_100_of_shares/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/rsaevv/in_march... > In March of 2005 this guy bought 100% of shares (1.1M shares) in a traded company to prove the corruption. The next two days that same stock traded 50 million times and dropping the price 99% in two hours. All this with LITERALLY NO SHARES AVAILABLE TO BORROW OR SHORT.
  - Closi 4y ago
    Short selling doesn't create new stocks, so as per the parent comment, what do you mean you can't tell how many shares of a company are issued? It feels like you have just changed the question from your original claim that "You can't even find out a definitive answer as to how many shares of a stock currently exist" - when the answer is easy, go to any website and divide market cap by share price. Want to find out what is shorted? Go on any website that has a stock quotes service or find the short interest ratio, which is declared at least twice a month for American assets. On the other hand, how would you see how many short positions exist for BTC considering that it is traded across multiple exchanges?

balaji1 4y ago

> there's at least a chance for the public to catch onto shady looking behavior that manipulates the price of an asset but can we do anything about it even if you catch the behavior? other than old-school regulation and litigation? and eventually add checks and balances > You can't even find out a definitive answer as to how many shares of a stock currently exist maybe there are better models of stock exchanges? (hopefully looking at Europe, or at least in the past)

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago

How do you think the SEC identifies insider trading? Do you think there's no "actual record of transactions" in non-crypto markets?

logicalmonster 4y ago
To give one small point within a very complex and nuanced topic that people could write a hundred books about... Financial disclosures in stocks are typically required to be filed within 30 days. As we know in investing, timing is everything. The financial disclosures that exist IMO mainly serve to placate the masses that there's regulation and are worthless for knowing about actual problems or impending price movement. With crypto, big movement of assets happens on a blockchain and can be observed in real-time. There's at least a chance of catching issues in a way that can't be replicated with stocks.
- salawat 4y ago
  You have this, so, so wrong. Insider trading isn't X sold stocks at Y. Insider trading is X arranged to sell stocks at Y based off of information disclosed from internal actor Z that was not publically knowable at the time of initial communication. It's about having a traceable privileged internal source that no one else did. Both the source and the trader are then culpable. Nothing about order stream makes it clear insider trading happened. It's about communications and things that happened before the trade that make insider trading. Trading in ones own shares as an executive is often treated with extra care because you are the ultimate insider, and you are also burdened with a responsibility that should prevent you from shorting your own stock (shorting as an exec signals either regulation on the horizon, or somebody hasn't been doing their fiduciary due diligence).
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    I was responding to the second part of NovemberWhiskey's post. Repeating a dictionary definition of insider trading isn't an interesting point for me so I ignored that part of the post.

School-Cotton 4y ago

> You can't even find out a definitive answer as to how many shares of a stock currently exist. What do you mean? I can google this for any public stock and I get answers; are you claiming they’re wrong?

logicalmonster 4y ago
Short selling. Shares are "borrowed" for a fee and flood into the market. Voila, buyers now have to buy a bunch of new shares that shouldn't exist just to keep the price level. Unethical hedge funds have made a living essentially tanking companies by borrowing loads of stock, selling at a high price and flooding the market with far more shares than should exist, tanking the stock price making the company having far more problems raising money (and killing off some of them). The borrowed shares are returned when the price tanks at a much cheaper price. This is bad for the world when it's just some weaker retail outlet being dumped, but devastating if it's some biotech firm researching medical cures being hamstrung. Now, there's supposedly some regulations and disclosures for this like the Short Interest stat that are usually published I think twice a month. But this is time delayed and manipulatable. Here's an interesting anecdote about this in an OTC market: https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/rsaevv/in_march_of_2005_this_guy_bought_100_of_shares/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/rsaevv/in_march... > In March of 2005 this guy bought 100% of shares (1.1M shares) in a traded company to prove the corruption. The next two days that same stock traded 50 million times and dropping the price 99% in two hours. All this with LITERALLY NO SHARES AVAILABLE TO BORROW OR SHORT.
- Closi 4y ago
  Short selling doesn't create new stocks, so as per the parent comment, what do you mean you can't tell how many shares of a company are issued? It feels like you have just changed the question from your original claim that "You can't even find out a definitive answer as to how many shares of a stock currently exist" - when the answer is easy, go to any website and divide market cap by share price. Want to find out what is shorted? Go on any website that has a stock quotes service or find the short interest ratio, which is declared at least twice a month for American assets. On the other hand, how would you see how many short positions exist for BTC considering that it is traded across multiple exchanges?