The Multi-Billion Dollar Ad Campaign For Bitcoin

Markets Open for Wall Street, Closed For Reddit

The game has been rigged against Main Street.

Trades that Wall Street hedge funds often execute are, without hyperbole, fraudulent in nature.

To put it simply (really simply), they were betting against certain stocks, one being GameStop (GME). This means when the stock goes down, the wall street traders make money. Sure, on the surface, that’s simply a bearish position. However, what makes it an outright slap in the face to the Main Street investor is that the hedge fund is allowed to play by its own set of rules, vastly overleveraging its position to the tune of 40X the number of stocks actually circulating, all in an effort to drive Gamestop into bankruptcy. 

The Redditors from WallStreetBets identified these Naked Short positions, and devised a scheme to play hardball with the folks in the big league. Buy the stock, drive the price up, and force Wall Street to lose their bets. This is exactly what happened, and what was the response? RobinHood closed the trades on GME, BB, NOK, BBBY, and a number of other stocks that WallStreetBets were targeting.

Taking a step back to analyze, it’s clear that big institutions and the government are happy to keep doors open for fraudulent trading — nevermind the consequences nor the potential domino effect. The public will happily foot the bill for outrageously risky and speculative trading behavior, as they did after 2008.

However, when a group of teenagers and hobby traders on Reddit get together to coordinate a trade on a meme stock, that’s when the red flag gets thrown. Once the brokers stopped live trading, it was broadcast loud and clear just how “free” these markets truly are.

This is a double standard that only exists in centralized systems.

This is financial censorship.

What is Decentralization?

Anything decentralized is absent from centralized control. There are pros and cons to a system like this. Learning about decentralization is actually really important to understand Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) on a macro-level. In order to learn about decentralization, I find it useful to invoke concepts that most people are already familiar with; Government.

Democracy is Decentralized Government

When we think of forms of government, we can name many. Monarchy, Dictatorship, Republic, Democracy, Oligarchy.

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others — Winston Churchill”

The reason why democracy works (more or less) is because two things are distributed amongst the participants. Control (Power), and Trust. However, democracy is very slow at moving policy forward, and progress in general — so much so that it may be the very thing that makes the system fatally faulty.

On the other hand, policy moves very quickly underneath a dictatorship because Control (Power) is centralized, and trust is enforced rather than mutually held. Decisions are made unilaterally and at the will of the entity in power. Most of us don’t need a history lesson on the woes of installing a dictatorship.

Bitcoin is Decentralized Finance (Money)

Even though we have a decentralized government in the western world, we still have a centralized financial system (money). The evidence is mounting that our centralized financial system succumbs to the same shortcomings of that of a dictatorship:

— Manipulation: Modification of interest rates

— Unilateral Decision Making: Printing of trillions without populous consent

— Censorship: Institutional suppression of activity such as Reddit traders

Bitcoin was designed from the ground up to be decentralized money. There is zero ability for the network to be manipulated, for decisions to be made unilaterally, or to have any of its users censored. In essence, it is a money designed for a true democracy.

What we have right now, is a centralized monetary policy. We need democratic money, because that’s a money that works for all people, rather than just the highest classes of our society.

Why Be In Bitcoin?

The events of the last couple of weeks is a perfect illustration of why I have 95% of my wealth in Bitcoin. It is the same reason why retail traders all over the world bought GameStop (GME) stocks last week. It’s out of total disgust for the current financial system we find ourselves in.

The difference between GME and Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is money, and thus the foundation of a sound financial system. GME is a stock on the stock market that traders found they could take advantage of. The WallStreetBets crew realized that buying GME was a way to take down the hedge funds.

What happens when these same traders, retail investors, and the average individual all over the world realize that buying Bitcoin could do the same thing to the financial system at large? In my opinion, WallStreetBets, and GME is the battle, Bitcoin and the USD is the war.

The Best Advertisement for Bitcoin

If it is not clear to you why we need a decentralized foundation for our financial system, then you haven’t been paying attention last week. Centralized entities won’t hesitate to protect their interests or the interests of their business partners.

Who can blame them? That’s what businesses are supposed to do.

What does constitute blame and harsh criticism is when there is a systemic double standard against the retail investor — that’s when there is a problem.

Bitcoin represents a system where censorship is impossible. Where there is no bias, no favoritism, and no handouts. No money printing, and no Cantillon Effect. This week was a billion-dollar advertisement campaign for Bitcoin, financed by RobinHood, and Wall Street.