[Wyoming23]

Given that crypto tokens value is purely from their online market price, I don't see how anything can ever be "market manipulation".

Stocks, bonds, commodities and their derivative products all have value tied to real world things- a barrel of oil, the future cash flow from a business, etc, and correspondingly it makes sense to have and enforce regulations to maintain in essence "the price of a bushel of wheat in the real world should be accurately represented by this contract to deliver wheat".

But if I create a new coin, ExampleCoin and hype it up on Twitter and discord so people are buying and selling it... Whatever price they agree to is the price. It's all imaginary and/or social consensus so by definition every trade is legitimate. The market isn't an abstraction, the market is the product.

Tl;Dr if I was the judge, I'd throw the case out and say this guy got his tokens by using the encoded rules and they're his to keep.