Market Abuse

Market abuse is the regulatory category for conduct that distorts a market rather than defrauding a particular person. It generally covers three families: dealing on information that is precise, price-relevant and not public; placing or executing orders that give a false impression of supply, demand or price; and disseminating information likely to move a price that the disseminator knows or ought to know is false or misleading. Where crypto assets fall inside a regime, the venue is typically obliged to run surveillance and to report suspicious orders and transactions to the supervisor. Two things are worth knowing. The prohibitions bind participants and not only firms, so a customer placing manipulative orders can be reported by the venue they trade on. And coverage is uneven — an asset or venue outside a regime's scope may carry no such obligation at all, which does not make the same conduct safe, only unpoliced.