I mean, maybe? If crypto is not bound by legal frameworks that govern traditional banks, what law would the exchanges have broken? The worst I could see happening is class action lawsuits, but not any kind of federal action.
You seem to be sarcastic but in fact yes the Robinhood/GameStop BS resulted in both a congressional probe and it skipped the FBI and went straight to the prosecutors at the Department of Justice.
And it's not only Robinhood. Citadel, the market maker seems to be the brain behind all this price manipulation and media attacks on AMC and GME and selling a whole lot of synthetic shares on the market which when retail investors buy do not affect the price. I've been following this saga closely and am beyond horrified of how corrupt our free market is. It is not free at all and heavily manipulated.
Looks like very serious stuff happened indeed. I'm not sure about why I forgot about the congressional probe. Perhaps it's because for the people who lost or made money out of this nothing changed.
It's good to know that when bad stuffs happens on regulated markets there will be a congressional probe while on the crypto market you have no prime BS on tv.
These companies are backed by VC money, they can just drag out any court cases for years or decades until they have managed to buy themselves legal immunity. We saw it with Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, etc.
