The big problem is that the exchanges are largely self-regulated. Or at least when I was in the field. A company I worked at sued a counterparty to our trade because we had proof of market manipulation. I won't say any of the details of who, etc, but the trades of the counterparty were so... plainly obvious of market manipulation in violation of the exchange's rules. At one point in that lawsuit the exchange's lawyers accidentally CC'd my bosses, showing that the exchange was colluding with the counterparty.

From what I was told, the issue for the exchange was that if they were found out to not enforce their self regulation then it'd be the precipitous event to the hammer coming down on them from regulatory bodies.

So yeah. Regulation's kinda shite here.

give me some examples of this “regulation” actually doing serious “regulating”? on paper, there may be 1,000’s of statutes and whatnots doing all sorts of regulations - in practice though… not to mention this industry is probably the most “self-regulated” when you actually dig in than most others…