Bitwise: Rug-Pulls Aren’t Always Illegal

Bitwise Head of Alpha Strategies Jeff Park on Monday said memecoin rug-pulls are not always illegal, while adding the caveat that it depends on the facts and circumstances of each individual case.

Park’s comments came in the wake of the LIBRA debacle which saw the token lose more than 90% of its value just 24 hours after launching. The resulting crash ended with more than $4 billion in market capitalization wiped out. Disgruntled investors accused Kelsier Ventures, one of the entities behind the launch, of insider trading and market manipulation. The team has confessed to netting a cool $100 million from the launch, further infuriating investors.

But Park hinted that Kelsier may escape unscathed. If memecoins are considered commodities and not securities, then investors can’t sue for insider trading. Instead, they must prove market manipulation, fraud, or both.

“Those charges generally require rigging prices or spreading false information to influence markets,” Park said. “It is often not enough to have passive information asymmetry.”

It appears that only a court of law can determine if Kelsier’s actions are tantamount to price rigging or providing false information to unsuspecting investors, but in Argentina, President Javier Milei who initially promoted the memecoin before retracting his support, faces accusations of fraud and threats of impeachment.

“Illegal is not always immoral, and immoral is not always illegal,” Park said. “But stupidity is legal,” he added.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。