Thread by @Pinboard

GameStop stock (which is soaring again because YOLO) really is the next generation of cryptocurrency. No cumbersome blockchain, no transaction fees, tight regulation and convenient token (tradable on the stock exchange!) put it ahead of all competitors.

The stonk became unmoored from underlying assets on December 31 and, like a neckbeard Skynet, achieved self-awareness that only increased its value. I look forward to the rest of the market detaching similarly and completing the legalization of online gambling in the US

We live in the timeline where the apes smashed the monolith to bits with their bone

We need a total and complete shutdown of the financial markets until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on

GameStop itself finally came to their senses and decided instead of buying old Atari cartridges in a strip mall to focus more on the money raining from the sky hypebeast.com/2021/5/gamesto…

Probably the most intelligent writing about the meme stonk/cryptocurrency equivalence right now comes from @nope_its_lily

The serious lesson in the GameStop situation is that looking at the stock in traditional terms will completely blind you to what is going on. People should apply the same lesson to cryptocurrency—you understand it best if you ignore the blockchain and tech aspects of it entirely

All these assets are priced based on the expectation that some core set of bagholders will continue to believe in a story. One way to raise this is to improve the story (fancier smart contracts etc.), but another that works is to make the stories self-deprecating inside jokes

The very ridiculousness of the crypto economy (Dogecoin, art-burning NFTs) creates a dynamic of squares and cool kids, and this differentiation reassures speculators that there will always be a layer closer to the center of the onion they can sell to. We have monetized irony.

My main theory as to what's going on is that it's still March 2016, I am laying passed out on the Antarctic ice, and a skua is pecking at my cooling brain

The Onion predicted today's startup and meme economy back in 2002 theonion.com/20-percent-of-…

I've been talking for 9 years about Scheherazade capitalism—how in a dynamic where storytelling has large payoffs, focusing on the content of those stories distracts you from seeing the real incentives at work. But I played myself. There are Dogecoin billionaires out there now.

Anyway use Pinboard