We’ll have to wait until the dust settles to see whether any lasting impact is made. If anything, that impact might just be more regulation/policing of stock pumpers to protect retail investors from getting caught up in high-risk hype trades, which probably isn’t the impact you’re looking for.
There is some macabre humour in the kamikaze attack on hedge funds, but at the end of the day there are many, many of them out there, and some contrarian fund will end up collecting most of the winnings. The little guy loses either way.
To address the earlier comment from McTraveller about taxing trading income at a higher rate: it’s called capital gains tax, and it is in fact taxed at a lower rate, ostensibly to “correct” for inflation. To prevent overtaxation, it tends to be over corrected (think, 50%). Simply abolishing this tax discount would be a huge move in the right direction. I’d also be in favour of a tax surcharge on all passive income, but honestly, I’d take even a small reduction in the capital gains discount as a win.
Aside: professional traders typically aren’t eligible for capital gains discounts as they don’t hold shares for the prescribed length of time to be eligible. So they actually do pay the higher (normal) tax rate. Tax reform could improve things here too, but honestly just closing loopholes and raising rates in higher brackets would go a very, very long way.