[Mojah]

One point I don't see made often: in order to short or long any market, you need _initial_ capital too. This whole "ask 1 BTC to get 2 BTC" requires 0 initial upfront costs from the attacker.

It's a win/win situation, they can't lose. They've invested nothing in their scam to begin with.

[ZachPruckowski]

Not just any initial capital, clean US dollars in a brokerage account under somebody's real name. You can't use BTC or rubles or drug money or whatever.