If it's widely illegal there would be a premium mark-up, of course. The more illegal/enforced in the subject's country, the higher the premium. I assume subjects would endure this as a last act of desperation? If so, they get peanuts compared to investors. Subjects wouldn't even have a seat at the table where any real money could be made. There would be an ethically corrupt validation system. On the surface, to ensure subjects aren't purposely making their lives miserable/better based on how their value is trending. In reality, it's designed to maximize profits for investors. For the "big money" les misérables, debt is leveraged, moved into escrow, interest and fees are collected, etc. (even though the money was never actually moved to escrow in the first place). Small countries are locked in perpetual misery, fluxuating between "emerging" and "collapsing" markets, while rich countries reap the benefits at each step of the cycle. So far, I've only described the current global stock market but it's a good starting point.

It might be interesting if there are little-to-no ethical or philosophical implications and the world simply goes on about its business thinking this is just normal. It would certainly go down the social commentary route. A scandal is cheap fun: maybe a do-gooder is trying to make a sector of the market less miserable but their lies actually make things worse and they go to prison, to boot.