The person talked about morally wrong. Legality, morality, ethics are not the same. The usage seems correct to me. The objective of wash trading to capitalist success happened well enough but not perfectly.
Everything can be technically correct in a terribly written piece. It’s really all about framing and context.
The issue is not really the specific word used. The issue is the overall framing and the ambiguity that the framing introduces.
Now imagine the exchange didn’t bankrupt itself and successfully kept these trades under the radar and then went on to become a popular product.
Some time later, the government catches wind and begins an investigation.
Imagine how odd a story about this would be if framed as: “The dos and don’ts of wash trading”. With content like “do make sure you don’t fall prey to smart Python programmers” and “don’t get caught”.
It’d be a lot weirder than “Popular exchange in trouble after the feds discovered evidence of early wash trading”.
Your side of the argument seems really laboured.
It’s like someone posted an article about how a high stakes jewel heist went wrong for the robbers and a bunch of people are having a go saying “well robbery can never go right because it’s wrong”
