Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
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Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
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Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#2>Meet Mike. Mike is a college freshman who is exposed to crypto through social media. He downloads Coinbase, buys ten dollars of CumRocket because his friend group is in on it, watches the price move, and feels for the first time the dopamine rush of gambling on non-economic random walks. By his sophomore year he is onto harder drugs: 0DTE options on triple-leveraged single-stock ETFs he does not understand, traded on a gamified brokerage built to look like a video game. By twenty-two he has a Kalshi account, because betting on the outcome of a presidential primary or a reality television show winner has been reframed as participation in financial markets. By twenty-four he has hit rock bottom in the sportsbook, firing off ten-leg parlays on Tibetan ping-pong and third-division water polo at two in the morning because the games he has actually heard of no longer move fast enough to feel like anything. Mike believes he is investing. Mike is gambling. Mike is on the express train to a gambling addiction, and he is meaningfully poorer at every stop along the way.
tbh that reads a bit like the war on drugs propaganda we got in school back then. You don't want to try the devil's lettuce cause in 2 years you will be a homeless heroin addict in San Francisco, or worse!
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#3> A shadow dollar system, newly blessed by federal statute, is quietly migrating the savings of the global poor onto the balance sheets of a handful of opaque private companies.
I'm out of the loop on this one. Is he talking about some crypto thing?
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#4Has been since 2017 IMO...
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#5Note that this post includes a major spoiler for the show The Good Place. The show is fantastic, so I'd suggest not reading unless you've already finished season 1, or have decided it's not for you.
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#6>Meet Mike. Mike is a college freshman who is exposed to crypto through social media. He downloads Coinbase, buys ten dollars of CumRocket because his friend group is in on it, watches the price move, and feels for the first time the dopamine rush of gambling on non-economic random walks. By his sophomore year he is onto harder drugs: 0DTE options on triple-leveraged single-stock ETFs he does not understand, traded o…
Well it's not wrong, the solution isn't abstinence though, it's proper education, help for those who struggle with it, and making it legal and regulating it.
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#7[dead]
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#8> A shadow dollar system, newly blessed by federal statute, is quietly migrating the savings of the global poor onto the balance sheets of a handful of opaque private companies. I'm out of the loop on this one. Is he talking about some crypto thing?
I am pretty sure he's talking about the TrumpCoin.
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#9>Meet Mike. Mike is a college freshman who is exposed to crypto through social media. He downloads Coinbase, buys ten dollars of CumRocket because his friend group is in on it, watches the price move, and feels for the first time the dopamine rush of gambling on non-economic random walks. By his sophomore year he is onto harder drugs: 0DTE options on triple-leveraged single-stock ETFs he does not understand, traded o…
>tbh that reads a bit like the war on drugs propaganda we got in school back then.
Well, propaganda or not, hard drugs are bad for you.
Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
#10> A shadow dollar system, newly blessed by federal statute, is quietly migrating the savings of the global poor onto the balance sheets of a handful of opaque private companies. I'm out of the loop on this one. Is he talking about some crypto thing?
I assume he is referring to the uptick in stablecoin adoption. USD Stable coins are US dollar-backed cryptocurrency tokens that are intended to always hold a value of $1 USD.
Stablecoins are not backed by a central bank. Instead their source of value comes from a private company that holds actual US dollars or USD-equivalent reserves (like treasury bills, etc).