The recent 92.7% upsurge in GameStop’s (NYSE: GME) stock has been making rounds in the fintech community, and as expected the Bitcoiners didn’t fail to chime in. The rally began on Tuesday when Redditors from the r/WallStreetBets Reddit community ignited a campaign that sent the stock to the rooftop.
Elon Musk who later joined in the conversation caused stock prices to rally by 50% after tweeting “GameStonks”. The activities made the video gaming stock a “large-cap stock” with $10 billion in market value.
The cryptocurrency community had a field day on Twitter as a handful of industry players took jabs at Wallstreet. However, Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of Skybridge Investment Firm has noted a rather significant “revolution” that this singular event could bring to the Bitcoin market; financial decentralization. Speaking to Bloomberg, he explains that decentralized finance, a concept that is similar to Bitcoin’s structure, is the main factor fueling this rally.
He asserts that the previous structure of financial management which was largely occupied by centralized bodies is becoming more “democratized” as low-cost trading and smartphones expand the industry to more retail, independent bodies. To him, this implies that Bitcoin is certain to morph into a globally dominant asset.
He’s quoted saying;
“The activity in GameStop is more proof of concept that Bitcoin is going to work,” “How are you going to beat that decentralized crowd? That to me is more affirmation about decentralized finance. It’s the age of the micro investor and you better take it seriously, otherwise you’ll get taken to the cleaner.”
Following the stock’s meteoric rise, Melvin Capital Management, the hedge fund that shorted GameStop’s stock has been kicked out of the stats, after sustaining a huge market loss. Many industry players, including Gold bug Peter Schiff, have concluded that stock manipulation is in play.
Nasdaq’s CEO Adena Friedman also reportedly warned that the market could be halted going forward. In her words;
“we are actively monitoring social media chatter and will halt stock if we match chatter with unusual activity in stocks”
Again, the centralized structure of the traditional market makes a case for digital assets and their decentralized nature; unlike the stock market, no institution has the power to shut Bitcoin down.
Meanwhile, Skybridge Capital seems to have stepped its foot into the Bitcoin market, with a recent Bitcoin fund LP that currently holds around $60 million. The firm also recently boasted of an overall Bitcoin exposure of a whopping $385 million, earlier this month.