If pump and dump comes from traders, it shouldn't be illegal....
... what will happen to them if they were caught and said that they're part of the group that pumps and dumps?
It's difficult to determine if certain pump and dump in prices were actually orchestrated...
It is clear that many people don't know what a pump-and-dump scam is. That is unfortunate, because their ignorance may lead them to join a pump-and-dump group, not knowing that they are the intended victims.
Pump-and-dump is
not a rise in price followed by a fall in price. That is the result of a pump-and-dump.
If I quoted you, please read this:
"Pump and dump" (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements...
But Bitcoin is not a stock nor a commodity. It may be illegal at regular exchanges like CBOE or Nasdaq, but how is that illegal at Bitcoin ones? We don't even know what these exchanges are doing themselves, and whether they are not doing things like front-running the orders of their clients or similar stuff. Bitfinex is rumored to be printing virtual dollars out of thin air just like that. I don't know how legal that could possibly be. Though I agree that P&D groups are mostly scams, but I still don't get what's wrong with a tightly-knit group of people to exert influence on prices by massive buys or sells.