If you thought celebrities in meme coins was something new…(hint, nothing is) One thing I’ve learned from spending a long time in markets is that almost nothing people think is…
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If you thought celebrities in meme coins was something new…(hint, nothing is) One thing I’ve learned from spending a long time in markets is that almost nothing people think is new actually is. We ju…
If you thought celebrities in meme coins was something new…(hint, nothing is) One thing I’ve learned from spending a long time in markets is that almost nothing people think is new actually is. We just keep finding different ways to do the same things, and every generation convinces itself that it’s witnessing something completely unique. I was reminded of this reading The Zeroes by Randall Lane, who helped create a magazine called Trader Monthly back in 2004. There’s a story in the book that could have come straight out of the last crypto bull market. The magazine had a recurring feature called “Celebrity Trader,” where they gave celebrities $50,000 and one week to trade the markets. They could trade stocks, futures, options, whatever they wanted, with professional traders available to help them. The results were published for everyone to follow, and the profits went to charity. Damon Dash, Jay-Z’s business partner, made 23.9% in a single week trading oil futures and currencies. Moby traded index futures on a professional trading floor. Alex Rodriguez shorted the euro and bought gold. Reggie Jackson made 5.4% trading tech stocks like Apple, Cisco, and Oracle, and even ended up on CNBC talking about his trades. This was happening over 20 years ago. Now think about how much excitement there was in crypto when celebrities started getting involved. In 2017 it was ICO endorsements. In 2021 it was NFTs. By 2024, we had Caitlyn Jenner, Iggy Azalea, Jason Derulo and others getting involved with memecoins. People were acting like bringing celebrities into speculative markets was some revolutionary new idea. Of course, the mechanics were different. Back then, it was a magazine putting up the money for a charity challenge. In crypto, you could create an entirely new asset, attach a celebrity’s name to it, and sell it directly to the public. If anything, we’ve just gotten much better at monetizing attention. But the underlying behavior is exactly the same. Speculation becomes popular, money starts flying around, celebrities want to participate, promoters figure out how to capitalize on it, and the public gets caught up in the excitement. This is why I think studying market history is so important, even if you’re trading something that didn’t exist five years ago. Technology changes, instruments change, and the way we distribute information changes, but the peo
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