If this isn't the end of a bubble, then it sure as Hell should be

I don't know what to do with this headline. It's so bizarre that it makes 1999 dotcom stock look reasonable. I am at a loss for words.

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Play-to-earn gaming is the newest craze in the crypto world, but unless you have thousands of dollars, you probably won’t be able to participate.

Enter a concept called scholarships—a way for players to rent the non-fungible tokens used in games as tools, creatures, or skins. These NFTs, for short, are often required for playing or they give players an advantage. In exchange for renting the NFTs, players pay the lenders a cut of whatever cryptocurrency they earn while battling, farming, or racing online. Essentially, NFTs are already maturing to the point where they have de facto landlords.

It's at the very end of bubbles that things get the most batsh*t crazy.
I believe that this special moment has passed, because prices are falling fast on the kind of stuff that never made sense.

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Thousands of Americans who jumped into crypto investing over the past two years in hopes of a rocket ride to instant wealth now face a similar reckoning: Prices for cryptocurrencies — from relative stalwarts such as bitcoin and Ethereum to more exotic tokens — have cratered since reaching all-time highs in early November, wiping out an astonishing $1.35 trillion in value globally, nearly half of the total market, according to CoinMarketCap.
The slide has accelerated over the past week as investors have fled riskier bets for safer harbors.

If you haven't gotten out of cryptocurrencies by now, then it may be too late.
We are starting to see a list of people who got took.

A number of star athletes have entered into promotional deals with crypto companies that involve converting at least part of their salaries into digital assets. Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. announced in late November he would be converting $750,000 of his 2021 pay into bitcoin as part of an agreement with the payment service Cash App.

If Beckham converted that amount in a lump sum at the time, it could be worth as little as $35,000 now, after factoring in bitcoin’s slide and his tax burden on the original payment, according to Action Network analyst Darren Rovell.

Republican New York City Mayor Eric Adams is sticking to his guns with his plans to take his first three paychecks in Bitcoin and Ethereum. How much he's going to lose is hard to say.

With much of the damage already done, the Biden Administration is finally going to apply some guard rails.
However, if you think that the Biden Administration is slow on the uptake, the Trump's have them beaten hands-down.

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This just in: the Trumps are mad that people are using their name to make money off unwitting rubes.

“Fraud Alert,” tweeted Eric Trump on Monday morning, noting very authoritatively on behalf of his family that they’ve just become aware of a Trump cryptocurrency that is unaffiliated with his father, former president and “Apprentice” star Donald Trump.

“Legal action will be taken,” the ex-president’s largest son added.

Though the Trump family just found out about their eponymous coin, it has, according to the TrumpCoin FAQ, existed since February 2016 (which was six years ago, if you want to feel old).

Ironically, the coin has, according to New York Times disinformation reporter Stuart Thompson, been subject to its very own scam: people selling physical Trump coins and calling them crypto. Thompson noted that these fake ads have “annoyed” those who back TrumpCoin, and that they’ve regularly had to fend off requests to trade the physical coin for the cryptocurrency, which is “impossible.”

I believe that scammers scamming the scammed scammers is the same as ringing the bell as the top.
Those that invested in meme stocks are getting hit the hardest.

Other users posted screenshots of their Robinhood accounts, showing losses in the tens of thousands of dollars.

One user, who claimed to be 20 years old, said that his initial investment of $5,000 had peaked at $90,000, but was now worth just $230.

Another favored meme stock, AMC, has lost a third of its value so far this year following a surge of more than 1,100 percent in 2021.

'The amount of cognitive dissonance that I see in the retail investment community, and I know it's only somewhat representative, it's pretty broad,' Chanos told CNBC on Monday.

I get the feeling that we aren't anywhere near the bottom.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

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ggersh's picture

@humphrey but Beckham the easy target cuz of who he is.

https://www.economywatch.com/bitcoin-robot/elon-musk-bitcoin

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

(but shouldn't the second part read "now we both rent studio apartments?") If I had invested in cryptocurrency, I would have gotten out two months ago when my young (40 year old) neighbor mentioned that she was thinking of investing in bitcoin.

Renting NFTs sounds as if it was created for gaming addicts. A synthetic version of buying casino chips on a credit card.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

...if this is the end of the latest bubbling market, how would one go about becoming this episode's Michael Burry?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

@The Liberal Moonbat
There are several funds that short the market. GRZZX, BEARX, others.
I believe that there are several inverse index funds. And of course you could short individual stocks.
The trick is timing, because if you're too early then most of your investment will be gone by the time it pays off.
personally, my timing sucks.

You could also short bonds, but I don't know how to do that.

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@gjohnsit

It is a rigged system and you are simply a pawn.

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@humphrey is that the US made most other avenues of investing unable to keep up with inflation. The stock market is pretty much it.

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A few years ago. I'd be rich if I'd ignored it.
I heard the same dire predictions almost a decade ago. I'd be filthy rich if I'd ignored it.
So basically, now's a good time to wait for it to start climbing yet again and then buy.

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@Battle of Blair Mountain
You could be one of those lucky few. You just have to know your limits.

For instance, Bitcoin has crashed in price by 50% or more three times now. So it's all about timing.

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the word was "we don't need to manufacture goods, the US has the financial industry instead" (applause). Once Carter started the deregulation ball rolling, the financial sector has made less and less sense, and the avenues open to the citizen of average means are all called "Chump Street".

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zed2's picture

I'd be willing to bet that they are insider trading like crazy. Especially in banking and drugs. They bank on high priced drug stocks.

Meanwhile the high prices of Rx drugs are bleeding the nation dry.

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zed2's picture

The US stock market is based on the idea of a Ponzi scheme where the small fish's losses prop up the old money's gains, I have heard that countless times.

There is no such thing as easy money. People who go seeking easy money will get burned. That's how the entire system is set up.

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zed2's picture

a paradise for the wealthy person who runs their own business, hands on.

If you are not that person, its rigged against you. Even if you are, it still maybe be rigged against you, if you are not big enough. The stock market is definitely rigged against small investors.

Thats what fascism/corporatism always does,It helps the strong and starves the weak.

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zed2's picture

so should be re-negotiated every few years to reflect the new lower wages.

So why should the bubble burst if that is true? Business will get more and more profitable if wages fall. Automation and outsourcing, the Internet and offshoring of jobs to the labor exporting nations, (via GATS) is likely to lower wages a lot because people will be desperate for work. Mortgages have to be paid, even if underwater. Baby has to have milk. Or he or she gets taken from Mama and Papa and adopted off to rich childless couples (EDCS cause infertility, you know) making tens of thousands of dollars for right wing churches facilitating their adoptions. They have a monopoly and pay no taxes on the money..

So, people will have to accept lower and lower wages. And if they cant afford to keep buying expensive housing and other commodities their children will be taken and adopted out to rich couples from the other side of the world who come here to adopt the poor American children - who "look like them" . I expect them to make unemployment illegal, so people will have to pay for jobs. Not be paid to work, they will have to pay. Putting people deeply into debt will allow them to be enslaved. For the crime of getting sick while poor. If they aren't the right nationality, and here on work visas allowing their enslavement, they will remain free but unemployed. Freezing in the cold. Because of their "rights". Yes, its twisted but its "our system"

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