Say I promise to buy 1,000 pounds of shrimp from you on a particular date at $10/pound. You turn down other deals on that same day. You take out a loan to buy the shrimp. You buy the shrimp. You rent a truck to deliver the shrimp to me. Then when you get there, I say "Sorry, I don't want the shrimp." But you gave up other jobs, took out a loan, bought 1,000 pounds of shrimp and rented a truck. How can I say "You didn't lose any funds"?

Matthew's bet pushed up the price of Pirate debt. This caused some people to acquire Pirate debt at inflated prices to hedge against the risk that Matthew would win his bet. It caused people acquiring Pirate debt to pay more than they should have. And it caused some people not to sell Pirate debt when they should have, believing that Matthew knew something they didn't.

Effectively, it manipulated the secondary Pirate debt market at a time when a number of Pirate victims were trying to mitigate their losses. It may even have enriched Pirate directly, at the expense of his victims, by allowing him to sell off his own debt longer and at higher prices.