Here is the reason I asked the question


Bitcoin – The Ultimate Multiplayer Game?
Interactive Brokers


By:
Steve Sosnick

Chief Strategist at Interactive Brokers


Cryptocurrencies are in the news this morning, as many investors woke up to see Bitcoin plunging by over 20% since last Friday. Actually, it would have only been news to those who watch cryptocurrencies during normal business hours, as the plunge began in earnest over the weekend. And when I say “over the weekend”, I don’t mean Asian trading hours that begin on Sunday evening, I actually mean Sunday morning Eastern time. Yes, for those of you who were previously unaware, Bitcoin trades 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Like a major casino, the Bitcoin market never closes.

It is just one of many ways that gambling, video gaming and trading have all become commingled. We have often noted that many of the newest crop of investors were sports gamblers frustrated by the lack of opportunities during the lockdowns. Markets gave them a nearly infinite supply of daily action, with technology stocks attracting the bulk of new money. Then, many new traders discovered that options offered them a generally similar payoff to gambling but with much lower transaction costs. Like a sports or casino wager, an options buyer risks an initial premium with the hope of receiving a multiple of that premium in return. Traders became enamored with options — particularly short-term, out-of-the-money calls with the highest decay – pushing volumes and open interest to new records. Although there is the greatest opportunity for action in stock and options markets, unlike casinos they have defined opening and closing times.

While online gambling may fill that void, it is only available in certain jurisdictions. Besides, even though many investors approach the two activities the same way, gambling sounds so much more unseemly than investing. That is where Bitcoin comes in.

Bitcoin is an investment, despite its quirks and gut-wrenchingly high volatility, but it shares many key similarities with multiplayer video gaming. It exists only in a virtual world, accessed only through an app or similar portal, and available during whichever hours the player/investor chooses. Most importantly, I believe that a significant number of young Bitcoin investors spent some portion of their youth playing multiplayer online games that require in-game currency. Think of the parallels between the “gold farming” industry that sprung up in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s with the Bitcoin mining industry that exists today. While Bitcoin mining is more sophisticated and less labor intensive than video game gold farming, in-game currencies often had real world values. That made them analogous to today’s cryptocurrencies. Either can be described as virtual currencies that could be utilized for real world purchases. While this may be a new revelation to a (ahem) mature non-gamer, I can’t believe this similarity would be lost on the new generation of new cryptocurrency fans.

Today must be a sobering day for many Bitcoin fans. A nearly 30% drop must be gut-wrenching, especially for those who have been sharing stories about their recent riches on social media. As I wrote last week about Bitcoin and Tesla (TSLA), “Parabolic moves usually come to a nasty, unpredictable end. But timing that result is nearly impossible, and the catalyst is often something trivial.” Many experienced investors felt that there was a modicum of unsustainable euphoria in Bitcoin’s recent run, and the reason for today’s drop is murky at best. That phrase fit uncannily.

Having said all this, there is still plenty of euphoria still present in today’s market. While TSLA is down about 5% today, that is a small dip in light of its recent record 11 day upward streak. TSLA’s chairman, Elon Musk, one of the most evangelical figures in investing, recently told his followers to use Signal for messaging, causing the unrelated Signal Advance (SIGL) to shoot from $0.60 on Wednesday to over $70 today (it is now about $29.50). Read that again – it’s an unrelated stock with a similar name. So, there is no shortage of speculative opportunities available to those who are willing to abandon conventional risk metrics, even with the jaw-dropping fall in Bitcoin. I urge you never to abandon risk metrics though.

I can see the analogies they use partly.

Gold farming had a tendency to wreck the economy balance of the games involved. Of course anymore, with most games, including Runescape are becoming more and more pay to win so the game make the money instead of the gold farmers.

This article is completely ridiculous clickbait trash. Bitcoin is well over 30k, back to levels not seen since.... wait for it..... last week. LOL. Using the the words "plunging" and and "gut wrenching" a "sobering day for Bitcoins fans" a "jaw dropping fall" Hahaha. ITS OVER 30K! Its was 25k at Christmas 2 weeks ago which is well over +30% at this writing. If you ask advice from anyone who know anything about Bitcoin "the game" is accumulate through dollar cost averaging with a long term horizon. Buying some each week or month to smooth out the volatility. The author here is clearly trying to scare people away from BTC.

Also he insinuates its a bad thing that Bitcoin trades 24/7. Its like saying the post office is better for getting a letter rather than email. Imagine doing all your shopping or banking or anything really in only the hours of 9 to 5 in the year 2021. Tradition equities trading is the odd one here. Interesting to note that because Bitcoin trades 24/7 it is already approaching more overall trading time as the NYSE

I'm not or have ever been a gamer to answer your question in another the other post

Bitcoin was down to 30k, back almost to 36k as a of 30 minutes ago. All the other altcoins have almost the same 24hr graph.

Uhm.... no.

Well Unless Pong counts

If bitcoin is going to become a medium of exchange it has to be open 24/7.

Idiot who wrote that article most likely believes in MMT.

Maybe the institutional investors just trade during normal hours...I doubt it as unless they're colossally stupid.

If you look at the price 7 days ago, BTC up 6% from this time last Monday

I have to come clean now, I played lots of Mario Bros, Tetris and Tecmo Bowl. Ha

I played pong and space invaders at the neighbors We were too poor to have video games and I didn’t allow them in the house to speak of when my kids were little.

BTC is still in infancy I still say it has a 50/50 chance. Either to the moon or zero. Maybe 60/40 in favor of zero

IMO Bitcoin has matured enough that the riskier play is to not have at least a little exposure. Especially in the current political climate. Censorship in social media platforms us just the beginning.

Looks like BTC will be above 40k either today or tomorrow...

I wish I would have done something when the guy said hey we need to be buying bitcoin like 8 years ago. It was so new though and you couldn't just buy it anywhere which made it seem sketchy and after looking at it for a couple weeks I never pulled the trigger. I wish a reputable name was selling it then, I'd have some for sure.

Looks like the treasury is not going to introduce any new crypto rules under the trump administration. BTC is probably fixing to make some good ground again.

Tesla reported they purchased 1.5 billion worth.

43,494 right now

Bitcoin just casually mixed in this list of scat is like listing a Lamborghini with a bunch of cheap plastic toy matchbox cars.

Perhaps but I'm over 800% on all but one of those ...

Which is about 0.1% of the current market cap of bitcoin.