They talk about "protecting retail investors," when in reality all the laws that allegedly protect retail investors from losing their money exist to keep poor people from becoming wealthy. You want to invest in a startup at an early stage - when you would see the most return? You need to be an accredited investor, first, for which you need already be in the top 1%. Granting Americans (who aren't accredited investors) more than 50:1 leverage is also illegal - to protect them from losing their money. I guess that one's ok - margin trading is just gambling anyway, right? And since we closed all the Casinos... wait, nevermind.