Can traders who hear about coin listings early get rich, and is that illegal?

"MiCAR insider law captures behavior concerning crypto-assets which have been admitted to trading or for which a request to trade has been made, Art. 86 para. 1 MiCAR. The relevant transactions or behavior are covered on a trading platform as well as outside a platform, Art. 86 para. 2, both in the EU and in third countries, para. 3."

"Arguably, the policy focus on market integrity and investor protection allows to capture insider trading on crypto markets more comprehensively if compared to the USA policies underlying classical insider or misappropriation theories."

"Rather, informational advantages will often go back to the opaque nature of many digital assets, issuers, exchanges, and intermediary market actors as well as the services they offer."

"EU law, by contrast, conceptualizes insider trading law primarily as a contribution to efficient markets. Its trading prohibition goes hand in hand with an obligation to immediately disclose material information to the market."

"With MiCAR, EU law features two distinct groups of digital assets to which insider law applies: firstly, crypto-assets admitted to trading. They qualify under MiCAR’s insider trading prohibition. Secondly, digital investment tokens which qualify as a financial instrument under MiFID II. These fall under MAR’s insider law."

"the adoption of the main doctrine that forms the basis of the insider trading prohibition today – the doctrine of the “misappropriation theory” – had a meaningful deterrent effect. This paper examines this question by studying the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in O’Hagan, which adopted the misappropriation theory"

"because pending transactions are public, a malicious user can observe a victim’s incoming transaction, craft a new transaction and then pay to place it before that of the victim."

"It happens when individuals use confidential information about a cryptocurrency to manipulate the market. This often involves using privileged knowledge of upcoming announcements, such as new cryptocurrency listings or major news that could significantly impact the market (EconOne, 2024)."

"They find that Bitcoin's volatility increases significantly ahead of regulatory announcements, especially those covered by major outlets like the Financial Times."

"Vincent Chiarella used confidential information obtained through his job in a financial printing house to anticipate impending tender offers. He bought cheap and, soon after, sold dear."

"a trader's regular access to market information, irrespective of source, places him in a special relationship with all buyers and sellers with whom he deals"

"around 70% of pump announcements occur between 15:00 and 17:00 UTC"

"They are restricted from trading of a crypto-asset(s) on Robinhood or another platform, from the time Robinhood publicly announces a new listing or delisting of such crypto-asset(s) up to twenty-four (24) hours after such broad public announcement."

"those who have been identified as Coin Aware Individuals (as defined below) are subject to even more restrictive requirements due to their exposure to MNPI during the listing/delisting process."

"You should refrain from trading until the market has had an opportunity to absorb and evaluate the information, which this Policy defines as one full regular trading session (in the case of securities) and 24 hours (in the case of crypto-assets) after the information was broadly disseminated."

"So long as a stablecoin’s pegged price is not in doubt, listings and delistings of the stablecoin are unlikely to be material with respect to the stablecoin"