The model is only as accurate as its boundary conditions. If you don't need to worry about the externalties, efficient markets hypothesis works (ish). But the problem is the steady-state condition of commodities trading is unregulated dark pools so anything between an unregulated dark pool and ETrade is a gerrymandered curve fit fought by trade groups, industry insiders, regulators and elected officials. Crypto is the same, only without the curve fit, the gerrymandering, the trade groups, the regulators or the elected officials. It is a wretched den of scum and villainy. And there, but for the grace of the SEC, goes the stock market.

Any fairness within a trading system is synthetic. If you can keep your trades to the synthetic boundaries where fairness is most strongly enforced, you will experience fairness. Investors, however, aren't interested in fairness, they're interested in advantage. Thus, the money tends to seep into the corners.

And depending on who's regulating it and how, corners are often all that's left.