This mess might be about many things, but mostly it seems to be about power. Power not just to shape the stock market, but also to shape a narrative. r/wallstreetbets discovered a game being played by big Wall Street short sellers and turned their bet against them to the tune of tens of billions.
If youβre dumb like I am, hereβs a quick 5 minute explanation of whatβs happening with GameStop and Wall Street $GME. The Robinhood Reddit bros are making millions and essentially took out an entire hedge fund. David vs Goliath. POWER OF THE INTERNET pic.twitter.com/G2iJVeBRsl
— KFC (@KFCBarstool) January 26, 2021
... by exposing and exploiting illegal naked short selling. It has revealed the hypocracy of many short sellers now facing losses. Perhaps most importantly, it has prompted stunning responses from multiple major online brokers.
This is unacceptable.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 28, 2021
We now need to know more about @RobinhoodAppβs decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.
As a member of the Financial Services Cmte, Iβd support a hearing if necessary. https://t.co/4Qyrolgzyt
The drastic reactive measures taken by brokers to benefit themselves as well as shorting hedge funds has shaken the faith of investors from all walks of life in this evermore apparently centralized market. Might this turn of events actually mark "the beginning of the end of centralized finance"?
Yea I donβt recall the part of the story when Robin Hood sells out and starts to be a mercenary for the crown...
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 28, 2021
Apparently everyone has a price. #ToTheMoon #GameStop πππ https://t.co/WPeItjQi9q
How can we best sum up what we're witnessing as crowdsourced financial empowerment meets with supposed free market integrity?
'Whatβs good for the goose is good for the gander'?
'The cat is out of the bag'?
'The kids have found the matches'?
There is surely plenty more debate to come over 'what's happening'. To put it simply, retail investors have come to recognize their strength in numbers, along with a way to take advantage of some especially greedy Wall Street funds. It seems 'the tables have turned'.
u canβt sell houses u donβt own
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2021
u canβt sell cars u donβt own
but
u *can* sell stock u donβt own!?
this is bs β shorting is a scam
legal only for vestigial reasons
As the struggle for control over the lens this story will be viewed through carries on, the integrity of our financial system is being tested like never before. It is r/wallbtreetbets who deserves much of the credit for directing the spotlight to the Wall Street reaction. An abrupt reaction which seems to embrace a perspective of insiders and outsiders.
The lens Wall Street criminals would have everyone see things through is unlikely to reveal anything resembling a two-tiered system, cultivating what essentially amounts to class warfare.
Speaking of warfare, it is hard not to wonder what other illegal naked shorts might be targeted next.
"Everyone we talk to is afraid of a gap up at Sunday night market open" - Tyler Wall, CEO of SD Bullionhttps://t.co/Kjg0mldXUG
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 31, 2021
'Reddit user 'TheHappyHawaiian' posted the following thesis on buying silver noting that "the worlds biggest short squeeze is possible and we can make history."'
APMEX, JM Bullion, SD Bullion all citing unprecedented demand for physical silver... #silversqueeze
— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) January 31, 2021
The Ballad of the Hedge Fund vs. The Edge Lords
— Jonathan Mann (@songadaymann) January 27, 2021
full song:https://t.co/rnE2PvQ8lN pic.twitter.com/lw0IlhOuQg
Of course it was the usual suspect Pranksy, who made it to the news due to his huge NBATopShot collection which he is selling.
Some of us in the EU stayed up really late to witness it live and on time. But it was a bit disappointing because it all happened so fast.
Made us wonder here at RLE Gazette HQ if there was more to it. Our investigative hounds were determined to get to the bottom of this.
Pranksy: I'm a 29-year-old male game designer by the way as my day job for bg
FOX: Very cool, and how and when did you get started with TopShot?
Pranksy: On alpha launch day June last year
FOX: And how many packs did you buy?
Pranksy: I spent around 100k $ on packs, over the first 3 months, then I sold a lot of moments to bring myself to profit, and then early January 2021 as I saw the market starting to rapidly increase in volume, I spent a further 700k $ on buying out entire accounts from other users
FOX: Any estimate on the value of what you currently hold?
Pranksy: Right now I've made a profit in excess of 500k $ and my account floor value is 6.13 M $.
I've been in NFTs or 'non-fungible tokens' since 2017 and been a strong believer in digital assets since.
FOX: So initial and more recent investments have paid out handsomely, but why did you feel confident investing, to begin with?
What made you think this was something that might blow up?
Pranksy: As above I've been around the space since 2017 I started with 800$ balance worth of a cryptocurrency called 'ethereum' and using my knowledge of game economics.
I've traded my way to a net worth of 8-10 M $. TopShot is not my first digital collectible rodeo, I knew the development team well and saw the quality of the product in comparison to its competitors
In a podcast in July last year, I go into much more detail about why I thought it could be really successful. The main points are ease of access for non-crypto users and the NBA brand.
And the visuals supporting each moment.
FOX: And the dumb q: 'moments' are the equivalent of moving trading cards? Like that's what you call an individual card or whatever
Pranksy: Yeah. Itβs a fully license mp4 clip of a famous play. The most famous so far probably being Lebronβs βKobeβ dunk tribute.
Fox: Got it.
Pranksy: So, itβs a fully-fledged and licensed digital collectible.
Fox: And you think itβs possible this model replaces the hard-copy cardboard trading card market some day?
Pranksy: Is there any chance we could link my social in the broadcast?
Fox: Yup. If weβre identifying you as Pranksy, weβll probably include your Twitter handle.
Pranksy: Thanks. Remember the NFT at the end
Fox: haha will do
Pranksy: So why do I think these are the future? Consider generations who now only know of a digital lifestyle, social media, etc. How much of their life do they share on tik tok and Instagram, and no longer take photos for their mantelpiece? I think this is the collectible equivalent
Fox: It certainly seems replicable by every other sports league
Pranksy: Those include, an instant international marketplace, no fear of forgeries because the creation and a full history of those collectibles are saved on the blockchain. No fear of losing the cardboard card in the post, no delay of 6 months to get an item βgradedβ. You can also display really unique methods of collectible incentives in metadata, such as serial number, set types limits, etc. And yes absolutely this formula can be taken beyond the NBA. Dapper already has a UFC license.
Fox: Any idea where you stack up compared to other collectors of Top Shot moments?
Pranksy: I believe in terms of floor value I am 3rd in the world. In terms of number of moments, I am first. There are a couple of major collectors who have not been selling since the start. I prefer to remain liquid so continue to list and collect. Iβve also just agreed to hold for 2 of my moments
Fox: Oh, very cool. Which ones?
Pranksy: With Heritage sports or Goldin. Iβm currently negotiating with both sites. They are the biggest sports collectible auction houses I believe.
Fox: And which moments?
Pranksy: Zion rookie debut #1 and Giannis rub it back #1 (itβs the only moment from his rookie season) 2013-14
Fox: Got it!
Must be noted that itβs the first time an Avastar also made it to the small screen through Pranksy. Since then, the Pranksy team has successfully launched and sold out their NFT Box. In only 6 minutes 500 boxes were sold out, with the sales keeping up strong on the secondary! Wow congratulations!
WE JUST SOLD OUT IN 6 MINUTES! @nftboxes #Genesis! https://t.co/t2wMN7aLoG is now the only place to grab a box, let the secondary market... begin!
— Pranksy (@pranksyNFT) January 30, 2021
Head to @opensea if you missed out!
INSANITY! #NFTs pic.twitter.com/PqVKcRMAog
It will not be long until Pranksy will make headlines again as his Zion Williamson RD #1 moment is currently auctioned on Herritage Sportsο»Ώ and the auction is ending in almost a monthβs time.
Broken link, here is the auction, current bid 26k! #NFT @Heritage_Sport @nba_topshot https://t.co/3y1m5lkaV1 https://t.co/SeqHV1PNIi pic.twitter.com/Tvp47nPUKc
— Pranksy (@pranksyNFT) January 30, 2021
Two big celebrities hit the NFT market as billionaire Mark Cuban, and rapper Soulja Boy released their own NFT's on Rarible this week.
Cuban tweeted out on Wednesday a link to a collection of NFTs called "The RollUp 2021," a collection of 10 GIF's of Cuban showing off his breathtaking dance moves.
Check out my artwork for sale ! MCuban's profile https://t.co/k9VPypckv6 #rarible #ethereum #nonfungible #digitalasset #nft via @rariblecom
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) January 27, 2021
The NFT's originally listed for a price of 0.02ETH. But they quickly shot up in price on the secondary market as two were bought for a whopping 30 and 35 ETH by @0x_b1. As soon as @0x_b1 got them he had the balls to burn one of them, essentially lighting $54,000 on fire.
Holy shit, @0x_b1 bought one of @mcuban 's NFTs for 30 ETH and then burned it like a chad pic.twitter.com/P7KbD1pmib
— DeeZe (@DeezeFi) January 28, 2021
Soulja Boy got in on the action, too, as he released NFT's called, "Soulja Boy' Crank That'" a collection of 20 on Rarible. He has only sold 12 of the 20 and is currently selling them for 5 ETH each, but people are only offering around 0.75 ETH.
Go collect my NFT: https://t.co/ME2fda9GIU @rariblecom βοΈ
— Soulja Boy (Drako) (@souljaboy) January 29, 2021
He has been tweeting a lot about crypto this week and is looking to make his own coin called "SouljaCoin." He wouldn't be the first rapper to release his own shitcoin, as Lil Yachty minted his own Yachtycoin back in December. I wonder if his coin will brick worse than his NFTs. We all know why he's here, and the crypto community isn't falling for it.
Who can help me make SouljaCoin a real thing without getting into any legal trouble with SEC etc.. like real and legit I think this could be big Idk. contact me thanks
— Soulja Boy (Drako) (@souljaboy) January 29, 2021
Dappers Lab, the creators of CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, created a new blockchain called Flow. Flow is a decentralized proof stake blockchain that is aiming to make blockchain technology more mainstream. Flow also recently released their Flow token for trading on Kraken on Jan. 27, 2021.
Flow plans on bringing blockchains to mainstream adoption by having fun game projects on the chain. As mentioned in issue #19, NBA Top Shot is built on Flow. This is just one of the many upcoming projects to be built on Flow. Some of the announced projects to be released on Flow are UFC digital collectibles, Dr. Suess digital collectibles, and a digital avatar maker called Genies. They have also signed deals with Warner Music Group and Ubisoft to use their blockchain technology in the future.
Back in October, $FLOW raised $18 million on CoinList through a community sale and auction. The sale was capped to a $1k investment per person, and the tokens are "subject to a two-year total lock-up period where 50% of tokens are unlocked at the end of year one, and remaining tokens unlock linearly over the 2nd year." Through the community sale, $9 million was raised. Through the auction, they were able to raise $9.5 million, and these tokens are "subject to a 1-year lock-up."
π We are excited to announce the successful close of the @flow_blockchain public sale, which raised $18M across both the community sale and auction from nearly 13,000 committed participants.
— CoinList (@CoinList) October 9, 2020
Congratulations to the $FLOW community! πhttps://t.co/ZctZu4mQTu
Now the coin is not available to trading for American/Canadian users, and it is unknown when this will change. It's funny how American companies can partner up and profit with this, but Americans can't. It kinda reminds me of how elitism in Wall Street works.
This week, $FLOW was released for trading and already taken the #109 spot by market cap on Coingecko, with a market cap of $207,309,290. The token was released at $4.94 and is currently up by 80%, sitting at $9.06. But that price has a question mark as the supply is very limited and demand really high. We are very bullish on this coin as the new blockchain is expected to grow. Plus, we are heading into Alt Season baby!
It will be fascinating to see where this project goes, especially with all these big companies partnering up with Flow. And if it's anything like TS, it should go to the mooooooon!
The Shameless Shilling
Based on Cixin Liuβs award-winning book by the same name, players compete in a cryptographically suped-up Galcon clone. The game looks to capture Liuβs concept of cosmic sociology and its two primary axioms, βFirst: Survival is the primary need of civilization. Second: Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constantβ (The Dark Forest).
During the beta rounds, players are challenged to grow their galactic empires to compete for xDAI (you know⦠the cryptographically backed and overcollateralized USD stablecoin transacted off-chain, but with limited counter-party risk).
The game loop is as follows: Find a nearby planet that is weaker than you; select a nearby planet you control to attack it; use that newly attacked planet to attack its neighbors. This is somewhat complicated by redirecting silver from asteroids to your planets so that you can upgrade them. Things get speculative with the introduction of NFTs.
In the latest beta release, v0.5, players may randomly encounter artifacts of varying scarcity and biome. These artifacts have some in-game utility, increasing player scores and specific stats of their planets. These artifacts also happen to be NFTs that can be withdrawn from planets into their controlling playerβs wallets. To date, there is no roadmap explaining what (if anything) these artifacts will be used for.
The remarkable complexity and beauty of Dark Forest is its commitment to a fog of war on a blockchain. This is an impressive feat, given that blockchains are public ledgers which do not take well to operating with hidden states.
When you begin the game, you are secluded on a planet without any real knowledge of the enormous map around you. To begin exploring, you need to start by hashing coordinates. Once your CPU cores crunch the numbers, youβll get to know what lies under a tiny portion of the thick fog. This creates a real fourth-wall breaking feeling, but in a way that draws you in rather than pushes you out.
Right away I was starting to imagine where I might score a better computer to compute hashes faster. Eventually, I figured out there was a plug-in to hash remotely and got some help connecting my game to an AWS server. This sped up exploration by a factor of 4, but beyond this interesting hashing gimmick is a far more difficult accomplishment: Every move in Dark Forest is actually a zkSNARK.
That is to say a proof that what you have done is valid, without actually revealing what it is you have done. Players will collect your meaningless proofs, but only once theyβve discovered a particular square will they be able to piece together its history. This is how the fog of war is preserved without allowing players to cheat. These SNARKS are also computationally expensive, meaning each move takes a few seconds to calculate before publishing. The gameβs creators are supposedly mining data surrounding SNARK proof calculation time to better understand these magical cryptographic tools and further their science.
On a parting note, for anyone looking for the big kahuna in terms of DF NFT here is the scoop: There are four tiers of rarity (common, rare, epic, legendary) and after 4 days of playing, this is what I had. In this past season, there was an additional contest to produce community generated plug-ins. The winner of the contest has yet to be determined, but they will receive an artifact of Mythic quality which so far has never appeared in-game.