[freehunter]

It's pretty common in penny stocks. It's usually a scam to say "this stock has jumped 4000% in the last 12 hours!". Very commonly, the owner of the company puts a bunch of money in to inflate the stock, waits for others to continue inflating the stock, then sells it all for a quick profit.

[trader]

Its common to go from maybe 1mm mcap to 40mm but not all the way to 4bn. To cross a bn valuation is insane.

[michaelt]

Presumably if a company issues 4 billion shares to the founder, who sells a single share for a dollar, the company has a 4 billion dollar market cap?

Of course I'm sure anyone trading stocks seriously would see through such a ruse immediately.

[JimboOmega]

Part of the reason why pink sheets is such nonsense.

[api]

SEC? Hello? I mean, are there really people (probably organized crime) who just run this scam over and over again in the OTC boards?

Yet the SEC won't let us crowd-sell stock in startups that at least intend to try to actually do something.