A fascinating vignette, though it would be improved if it delved a bit further into the finance underlying the 'alchemy'. Trading securities with yourself to c

A fascinating vignette, though it would be improved if it delved a bit further into the finance underlying the 'alchemy'. Trading securities with yourself to create the illusion of value is called wash trading, and it is illegal. Selling securities to other people on the basis of that illusory value is securities fraud, which is also illegal. People have done this with penny stocks since forever, and the SEC is pretty good at catching them out. It's not hard to see the pattern in the trading data. Here, it seems that Broeksmit was able to wash trade his own invented tokens, but since no one else was fooled by the misleading trading data, he couldn't sell them. That's good, as it implies there were no victims of his attempted fraud. The rest of the story is sad, but hardly unexpected. Anyone who's dealt with people in dire straits knows they'll cling to anything, no matter how half baked or implausible, that they see as a potential lifesaver.