That is not quite correct. The unregistered shares cannot be sold (on an exchange) for some period, usually a year. They can be sold to another buyer who, say, might buy into the company longer term or for other reasons. So, and this is just speculation, if the company is trying to restructure and we see (posted) that there are large volumes of shares in single transactions (and assuming they could be legal), it would seem to require private (i.e. non-public) transactions, would it not?