Venture capital firms are increasingly cashing out of private companies at inflated valuations, leaving retail investors to bear the brunt of the fallout. As companies like Figma and Klarna see their valuations plummet post-IPO, the public market is reduced to a mechanism for wealth redistribution rather than value creation. This trend has been exacerbated by the narrative of democratizing investment, which in reality allows retail investors to buy into overvalued stakes previously held by insiders. The cryptocurrency sector has mirrored this strategy, with early project foundations offloading locked tokens as compliant equity assets to traditional financial institutions. This allows insiders to exit at peak valuations, while retail investors are left holding devalued assets. The Nasdaq's revised listing rules further facilitate this process by forcing passive index funds to purchase shares at inflated valuations, enabling insiders to exit profitably. This systemic exploitation of retail investors is legal, yet it deepens the wealth divide and fuels public discontent.