> Oh, right, they're not regulated.

Wasn't that one of the big selling points of BTC?

Cryptocurrency is almost completely unregulated, so no there are not likely to be ramifications. It's anarchy and just about anything goes. Buyer beware.

Also I didn't get the sense that Musk single-handedly pumped BTC. He jumped on the bandwagon about mid-way through the current pump. I am still foggy on what kicked off the current bull run.

The daily volume of BTC is above 50 billion. The cap is over a trillion. This is not a fundamental movement but a value based / perception one.

The SEC doesn’t consider Bitcoin a security, so it can’t be securities fraud. Also there usually must be lies (or intentional omissions) involved to prosecute these things, and I don’t think either of those apply here.

Telling people that you bought a certain stock isn't illegal wtf. Have you watched CNBC or Bloomberg? They have hedge fund operators come in and praise or criticize stocks that they have bought or sold short.

It is when you do it for the purposes of market manipulation.

Intent matters, which also makes market manipulation so difficult to prove.

Allowing people to buy cars in bitcoin and telling people might be.

Then maybe Satya Nadella should've been put in prison first. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-starts-accepting...

Start with the guy who started accepting bitcoin for pizza.

https://ln.pizza/myfirstbitcoinpizza/

pwning libertarians is ok in my books!

(ooooh, was there lead in your hamburger? just the price of freedom, I guess! if you don't like it, you can go eat fiat hamburgers like the plebes.)

lead in your hamburger is illegal in both libertarian legal frameworks and non-libertarian legal frameworks.

liberty: intentionally or intentionally harming people is illegal. If you or your company poison someone, you are held responsible for the harm you caused.

non-liberty: a specific regulation about the level of acceptable lead in meat. limited liability shields the owners from being held responsible.

It's not illegal to sell a security after disclosing that you own that security.

I don't even have to point to any specific laws, just look at all the websites that talk about stocks operating without any SEC intervention.

It is illegal to "pump and dump" a security.

I have a hard time believing the people here defending Musk dont know this, and can't see how his behaviour _migbt_ qualify as a pump and dump.

1. Tell someone you own a security 2. They get excited and buy it 3. You sell it when it goes up

You can't just classify this set of actions as a pump and dump. You have to do something that is considered a scam, such as grossly misrepresenting the security with the intention of making a profit at the cost of uneducated investors. As far as I can tell, Elon never claimed Bitcoin is environmentally friendly, nor did he make other false claims about Bitcoin's functionalities or capabilities.

Except Bitcont isn't a security, so there are no laws against "Pump and Dump" in the unregulated market.

Some would argue that Bitcoin is fundamentally a giant "Pump and Dump" anyway, so nothing to see here.

Sure, but what you're basically saying is "what Musk did isn't illegal because the thing he did it against isn't considered a security"

You may be technically correct, doesn't make it any less sketch or immoral

Pump and dump arguably isn't immoral. It's just using herd mentality, if it wasn't illegal people might actually try to think before they buy and sell.