Study: Crypto and Bitcoin Lead as Reddit’s Most Mentioned Words in Investment Forums

August 16, 2024 Bitcoin.com

Analyst Says if Silver Dips Below $18, Precious Metal Could ‘Get Absolutely Smoked’ — Morgan Report Founder Expects a Supply Crunch

August 21, 2022 Bitcoin.com

ASIC targets pump and dump Telegram groups

October 15, 2021 Coin Telegraph

ASIC

“Coordinated pumping of shares for profits can be illegal. We can see all trades and have access to trader identities,” said ASIC in a message to the ASX Pump Organization on Telegram.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is going after pump and dump groups on Telegram.

On Monday an account under the name “ASIC” posted a message in the “ASX Pump Organization” on Telegram to warn around 300 members of the group that “we’re monitoring this platform and we may be investigating you.”:

“Coordinated pumping of shares for profits can be illegal. We can see all trades and have access to trader identities. [...] You run the risk of a criminal record, including fines of more than $1 million and prison time.”

Many of the group’s members assumed the account to be fake, however ASIC confirmed the validity of the now-deleted message to The Australian newspaper.

While some members of the community have laughed off the message from ASIC, others have vented their frustrations at being targeted instead of firms and corporate traders.

“What ASIC needs to do is go after the corporates who inside trade and short companies all the time, and not spend valuable time here hassling 300 small investors who are doing nothing wrong by sharing stock recommendations. This has to be the biggest joke in history,” a member wrote.

On Sept. 23 ASIC published a warning about a “concerning trend” of social media groups engaging in “blatant” pump and dump campaigns. It stated that “in some cases, posts on social media forums may mislead subscribers by suggesting the activity is legal,” before warning of prison sentences of up to 15 years and fines of more than $1 million.

“ASIC has been working closely with market operators to identify and disrupt pump and dump campaigns, and we will continue to target actions that threaten the integrity of markets and to take enforcement action where appropriate,” said ASIC Commissioner Cathie Armour as part of the release.

Crypto-based pump and dumps weren’t specifically targeted by ASIC, however a spokesperson for the regulator told Cointelegraph:

“The campaign is targeting listed stocks but the messaging is relevant for all financial products, including any crypto assets that may be, or involves, financial products.”

“Even where the activity relates to cryptocurrencies/products that may not be financial products under the Corporations Act, the pump and dump practice is concerning as it can lead to investor losses and create unnecessary price volatility,” the representative added.

Pump and dump groups have grown in popularity this year after the r/wallstreetbets and Robinhood saga in January. The Reddit group —which is admittedly more about the pump than the dump — collectively worked together to pump stocks that hedge funds were shorting against such as GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC).

The Founder of Wallstreetbets Jaime Rogozinski Discusses Defi, NFTs, and Crypto Regulation

October 3, 2021 Bitcoin.com

SEC takes action against two meme stock wash traders

September 28, 2021 Coin Telegraph

AMC

The SEC asserts that the defendants unlawfully gleaned more than $700,000 through a wash-trading scheme that targeted exchanges offering market maker rebates.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint against two Robinhood users over an alleged wash-trading-based arbitrage scheme that utilized meme stocks.

According to a Sept. 27 complaint, defendants Suyun Gu and Yong Lee took advantage of differing trading fee schedules offered by different retail brokers and exchanges to extract arbitrage while wash-trading.

By trading between venues that offer rebates to market makers and those that do not charge fees to market takers, the SEC estimates they generated more than $1.5 million worth of rebates in total through the alleged wash trading scheme.

Gu and Lee are believed to have been able to keep nearly half of the rebates as profits, with the commission estimating they profited $668,671 and $51,334 respectively while wash-trading during February through April of this year. The pair are believed to have executed 11,400 and 2,300 trades through the scheme respectively.

The pair are accused of targetting put options contacts for popular meme stocks including GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC). According to the complaint:

“Gu and Lee Believe that other marker participants’ interest in buying ‘meme stocks’ and related price increase would make put options on those stocks less attractive, making it easier for Gu and Lee to trade with themselves.”

While the trading venues used by the pair are not explicitly named in the court documents, it appears the pair were using the popular fee-free investment app Robinhood. The documents state that Gu concocted the scheme after watching the CEO from “Broker-dealer B” outline in a February court testimony that his firm does not charge taker fees to its customers — the same month that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev testified before congress regarding market volatility related to GME and other meme stocks.

So-called “meme stocks” like AMC and Gametop became widely popular as a result of the Robinhood and Reddit-based pump and dump group r/wallstreetbets saga earlier this year.

Robinhood was the subject of controversy in January after the platform halted trading on GME amid the notorious short squeeze against hedge funds that was led by the fiery-eyed Reddit community r/wallstreetbets.

The group responded by immediately converging on crypto, with Dogecoin pumping by 980% on January 28 — the same day that Robinhood acted to dampen the frenzied meme stock speculation.

Robinhood has since estimated that Dogecoin accounted for 62% of its crypto revenues during Q2.

Wallstreetbets Founder Jaime Rogozinski and Wsbdapp Project Launch 15,000 Generative NFTs

September 22, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Balancer Protocol Reveals Partnership With Wallstreetbets Defi Project Wsbdapp

September 9, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Newly Launched Wallstreetbets Defi App Aims to ‘Take Over Traditional Financial Markets’

September 4, 2021 Bitcoin.com

New funding round sees Reddit gain $4B in valuation since February

August 13, 2021 Coin Telegraph

New funding round sees Reddit gain B in valuation since February

Coin Telegraph

Speaking on the latest funding round which sees Reddit at a valuation of $10 billion, Steve Huffman, co-founder and chief executive stated tentative plans for the firm to go public.

Popular social media platform Reddit has gained $4 billion in value since its last funding round earlier this year in February.

Six months ago the firm raised $250 million in Series E funding at a valuation of $6 billion.

In the latest move, Reddit announced a Series F funding round on Aug. 12 — which is being led by Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC and is expected to close at around $700 million with a post-money valuation of $10 billion.

According to the New York Times, investment in the funding round has reached $410 million so far, with Reddit stating that it expects further financing from existing investors to reach the $700 million target.

The true valuation of Reddit is hard to gauge as the firm is yet to go public. On that subject, Steve Huffman, Reddit’s co-founder and chief executive said to the Times:

“We are still planning on going public, but we don’t have a firm timeline there yet.”

“All good companies should go public when they can,” he added.

The company will use the latest funds to further international growth, simplify the user experience, improve website functionality, and roll out more video and audio features, along with developing a self-service advertising system.

The platform competes with ad-based social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter, with Huffman stating that “we’ve grown up in the shadow of Facebook and Google, and pretty much every dollar we make we’ve had to fight for.”

Unlike Facebook or Google however, Reddit has already launched its own cryptocurrencies in the form of Reddit Community Points.

The r/CryptoCurrency subreddit, which has 3.3 million members, has its own coin called r/CryptoCurrency Moons (MOON). In January, Cointelegraph reported that one user sold 14,000 Moons they acquired for free to pay their rent.

MOON currently has a higher price than Dogecoin (DOGE). At the time of writing, according to CoinGecko, DOGE is sitting at $0.27 while MOON sits slightly above at $0.29.

The r/FortNite subreddit launched a similar RCP called BRICK.

Reddit is home to the notorious memestock group r/wallstreetbets, which has had a significant impact on stock markets and crypto markets this year with its retail trading and pumping antics. The group’s popularity led to the creation of the crypto equivalent in r/SatoshiStreetBets, which now has a community of 480,000 Redditors.

Nifty News: GameStop’s NFT market, NBA star LaMelo ‘mints career’ on NFTs … and more

May 28, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Animoca Brands

Gamestop may be working on its own NFT marketplace, while Rookie of the Year candidate LaMelo Ball is set to drop 500 Dynamic NFTs.

It appears that “r/wallstreetbets” favorite meme stock company GameStop is in the process of developing its own NFT marketplace.

Oh wow, @GameStop is launching an NFT platform https://t.co/3lkqgJTiwS pic.twitter.com/3BT1Szo9qJ
— Brad Michelson (@BradMichelson) May 25, 2021

While an official announcement hasn’t been made, the gaming giant appears to have launched a website named “nft.gamestop” — and is currently on the lookout for recruits:

“We welcome exceptional engineers (solidity, react, python), designers, gamers, marketers, and community leaders. If you want to join our team, send your profile or something you've built to: nfteam@gamestop.com.”

Information on the bare bones website is sparse. Apart from the job listing, there is a Nintendo Game-Boy-like gaming console with a GameStop cartridge placed at the top. The console’s screen has green text which reads “power to the players, power to the creators, power to the collectors.” The website budget looks like it was under $20.

Interestingly, there is a link under the console to an Ethereum address. Upon searching the address on Etherscan, it looks like the firm will be utilizing Ethereum's ERC721 standard, with an overview showing a “GME token” although there are zero in circulation so far.

In the comment section on Etherscan, some “r/wsb” members have already flocked to show support, with several people commenting with “I like the stonk,” — a popular meme within the community.

LaMelo having a tokenized ball

Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball is set to drop a collection of 500 Dynamic NFTs — non-static and updatable NFTs — before the NBA Rookie of the Year announcement in June. The collection will be dropped on lameloball.io.

"As I learn more about blockchain, I realize this is the most powerful and unique way to engage my fans in a way that's special to them individually," Ball told ESPN on May 28.

Ball is one of three rookie of the year candidates and is dropping 500 “Dynamic NFTs” that will automatically update to include the award (if he wins it).

Unlike static NFTs which can’t change, Dynamic NFTs can be updated with new data as they rely on “perpetual smart contracts that use oracles to communicate with and react to external data and systems” according to Chainlink Labs.

Utilizing Dynamic NFTs, Ball plans to update or “level up” the NFTs according to events from his NBA career. The 20-year-old also plans to offer lotteries that will allow collectors of the NFTs to “burn” them in exchange for that chance to win game worn-memorabilia.

"LaMelo will become the first athlete to mint his career on the blockchain," Sher Chaudhary told ESPN, The co-founder of Playground, the Southern California-based NFT design studio working with Ball.

According to ESPN, along with the 500 Dynamic NFTs, the rookie of the year candidate has plans to release a further 9,500 standard NFT’s on the Ethereum Blockchain.

NFTs are Gucci

Christie's art auction house has announced the launch of a new NFT auction dubbed "Proof of Sovereignty” — which includes a tokenized fashion film from Gucci.

The auction is already underway and due to close on June 3 and is being curated by the co-founder of art and crypto media advisory firm Universe Contemporary, “Lady PheOnix.”

The auction will consist of artworks from 19 different artists and includes fashion giant Gucci’s first-ever NFT — a tokenized fashion film co-directed by Alessandro Michele and by renowned photographer and director Floria Sigismondi.

The film explores the themes of “universal desire for renewal; a yearning to bloom and flourish after the shadow of winter has passed,” and has a starting bid of $20,000.

All of the proceeds from Gucci’s NFT sale will be donated to UNICEF USA, which supports UNICEF’s role in COVAX — “an initiative aimed at ensuring global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.”

Animoca Brands and Hedera

NFT game developer Animoca Brands has entered into a partnership with a public distributed ledger or DLT, network Hedera Hashgraph to develop two DLT-based gaming projects.

Hedera Hashgraph revealed the first project is an NFT based soccer game, that will feature tradable tokenized player NFTs which are backed by Hedera’s native token HBAR.

The NFTs will be redeemable for HBAR after an unrevealed “cooldown period,” with the firm claiming that this will represent the “first time that an NFT will be redeemable for a fixed and guaranteed amount of an underlying crypto asset.”

The second project dubbed “Helix Warp” will be an independent DLT-based online gaming platform focused on taking down cheaters.

“Helix Warp will counteract cheating by creating a server-side simulation environment and leveraging the Hedera Consensus Service to record results. Game developers will be able to plug into Helix Warp and deploy hack-resistant leaderboards in their games.”

“Helix Warp will target HTML5 games, to begin with and utilize the Helix Warp token to underpin the ecosystem,” the blog post added.

r/wallstreetbets

LaMelo having a tokenized ball

NFTs are Gucci

Animoca Brands and Hedera

Share this video