This is the mockery of a generation.
When the system of centralized finance — and by that I mean the broker-dealer, the clearing firm, the hedge funds, and the whole caboodle (even the Dow Jones) — is getting creamed, the one that’s cheering is an internet meme coin, which, like the meme community that started this whole saga by trading a “meme stock,” upset the status quo and everyone who believed in it.
When the Wall Street is middle-fingered by a meme, you know it’s bad.
(Even Elon Musk has liked several tweets related to DeFi so keep the steam going defiers~)
So just how bad has centralized finance got and what does it for decentralized finance?
First, it’s safe to say that custodial wallets like Cash App, payment services like Square, and broker-dealers even like Robinhood and the clearing firms behind them are not going away anytime soon. The speed of them being disrupted depends on how they evolve as accidents like this happen in the future and how fast the decentralized financial services as an alternative matures. (And as of right now, to my fellow defiers, DeFi services need at least the same UX to appear under the mainstream radar).
Second, however, cryptocurrencies are beginning to be taken seriously as a financial alternative — you can look at the pandemic as well — even just as a meme revenge/mocking tool towards the centralized financial space.
Third, what this incident with Robinhood and the hedge fund people proves is that, bastardizing what Chamath Palihapitiya said in the latest CNBC interview: these people on Reddit (and in crypto) aren’t as stupid as the mainstream think they are.
People usually think of things that are funny as being not serious, but memes turn out to be funny and seriously valuable at the same time.
To close I just want to use this opportunity to send a message to my fellow defiers that decentralized finance should use opportunities like this to accelerate the adoption of DeFi. DeFi infrastructure may still be under construction, but at least this time, although we may still be a meme, Wall Street is a joke.
