Your plane is about to crash
What can we learn from a Paradigm backed project and a remote tropical island full of monkeys?
You, a sophisticated actor in the financial markets space is on your way to a remote paradise to unwind after crushing it in tradfi during years of non existent interest rates… congrats to those who listened
You hear a loud bang, in a panic you take off your noise cancelling Bose headphones only to see smoke coming out the right engine. Fasten seatbelt light DINGS as the pilot states the obvious “we goin down”. You would think jets can float down with one engine but unknown to you, pilots are in short supply and Kevin learned on his xbox
You crash land on an island somewhere off the coast of southeast asia. You and Kevin both survive but are rattled. Middle of nowhere… no cell service… having never been in this kind of scenario you panic at first, but slowly start to acclimate to the new reality. What you do have is a suitcase full of cash, high level math degree, and sophisticated knowledge of the financial markets space. Like any great investoooor you assess the situation. Heres what we know…
You start walking down the beach and to your surprise see more private jets washed up to shore. So at this point your either thinking kevins entire family must be pilots or there must be other sophisticated players on the island.
You keep walking to get your steps in and finally stumble upon 3 merchants…
Jimmy sells bananas at the banana stand ( $1/lb )
Harold sells parcels of land on the island ( $10/sqft )
Mark sells fresh water ( $100/bottle )
You figure you have 10 grand in cash might as well figure out how to put it to work. Even though a couple private jets washed ashore the only people you see on the island are a buncha dumb apes. Gota be some edge right? So your start calculating the supply / demand dynamics and gather as much information as possible.
Hit up Jimmy and ask where he gets his bananas from.
Ask Harold how many parcels are on the island.
Ask Mark how many bottles of water hes able to sell.
What you gather is Jimmy gets his bananas from Harold, who grows bananas on his land. And Mark doesn’t give you any info, kinda sus. So after using whats left of your iphone battery you start to run some excel spreadsheets…
EXTRAPOLATOOOOORRRRRRR
Calculate how much land you can purchase, how many banana trees you can plant, your revenue from selling bananas to Jimmy by undercutting Harold. Numbers check out and seems like a steal, so you go back to Harold and get yourself some land.
You sit back enjoy the sun for a couple days realizing you just made the easiest trade of your life. But as you get up to grab another drink you spot a cruise ship in the distance. Its coming toward the island, your SAVED!! Can finally go back to your old life. Figure you might as well get your money back. So you go back to Harold and ask him what he will pay for your land. Harold laughs and quotes you 30% lower, at this point you have no choice but to sell. While you sell back your land you check with the other merchants. You look over at Mark and see he is still at $100 a bottle. You look over at Jimmy and talking to someone with a shit ton of bananas and you realize its KEVIN.
You both get on the cruise ship and realize Kevin has bag of cash with him. You ask how much he sold his bananas for and he tells you 10x what he paid for them. Your confused, can’t be possible. High supply, increasing inflation from trees, doesn’t make any logical sense. Kevin tells you he wandered deep into the island and hung out with all the apes while you were busy extrapolating relative value and ROI. Kevin realized they like the bananas, and all it took was one of the head apes to really drive home how much he liked bananas.
Over time you numbers are correct and it is the right trade. But timing when you would be rescued is impossible and forced you to capitulate. You start wondering…
Did Harold know the cruise ship would come?
Is Kevin actually a genius?
Did we really land on the moon?
Nothing makes sense anymore.
This story is either real dumb max cringe and I wasted your time or can help explain the absurdity of these crypto markets. Now you never wanna go FULL Kevin, but its important to understand who the participants are in the market. Your calculations may be correct, but that only works if the apes are also doing the same calculations and realize the value. Apes dont do fancy math and spreadsheets. At the end of the day they just wanna gamble and this continues to be cryptos best and only use case.
For example, is pacmanblur technically smart enough to develop some ZK proof layer 3 wizard fugazi tech. Sure no doubt. But the only way you make money off that is some 30 page report by a future PHD black turtleneck wearing buncha plants in office VC group highlighting how that technology is the future. But what does he do? Spins up a multisig with a referral pyramid scheme connected to a points slot machine. As I write this BLAST has 820 MILLION DOLLARS in it. Why? because thats what the current apes (market) want. Whether you think its healthy for cryptos future doesnt matter, the reality is they just wanna press a button to see some imaginary points go up with hope of future on chain wealth. Is this a problem? maybe, but you cant fight what the markets demands and pacman understands this.
Sometimes its best to stop trying to make sense of this market and submit to the absurdity. Ledger, a forklift loving dad from Alabama was gifted a Honorary BAYC which he sold for 200 ETH. A JPEG FOR FREE and in return gets HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in cash. Congrats ledger, nice trade. Its sounds dumb but sometimes its best to stop applying every day logic to these markets. I am eternally stuck in the middle of the curve, but maybe you anon can one day reach the on chain wealth of the left curve Kevins.
Happy gambling
- Fudz
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