Investing as Entertainment | Shreyas Hariharan

If you thought investing in Gamestop was entertaining, what about if you could invest in WallStreetBets itself? Or what if you could own some $KANYE tokens and watch how the price fluctuates based on Kanye’s moods and outbursts? What if you could invest in a funny tweet before it went viral and pocket some gains?

We typically separate investment and consumption goods. Consumption goods are meant to be consumed and have no future productive use. Investment or capital goods are used to produce more consumption goods. But what about investment goods being sold as consumption goods? When investing is a form of entertainment, it is also a consumption good.

Robinhood isn't competing with Interactive Brokers and Charles Schwab. It is competing with Netflix and TikTok. DeFi has built an even better casino than Robinhood and Wall Street. Besides the profits and the novelty, people are attracted to DeFi because it is entertaining. DeFi is an e-sport.

Communities like r/WallStreetBets make investing social. People share their ups and downs with each other. It is like experiencing a concert together, except you're headbanging to the wild swings in your P&L. The WallStreetBets community has shown the power of investing as a tribe.

Crypto enables the financialization of almost everything, including things you didn’t think could be financialized. This includes a meme, a song, a person’s future net worth, or a community. This amplifies the “investing as entertainment” thesis even further.