GameStop, a struggling brick-and-mortar retailer, made headlines last week after a group of Reddit users rallied together and drove the stock’s price way up—causing short-selling hedge funds to lose $91 billion dollars.
Wall Street was not happy—they made numerous trading halts, bailouts to failing hedge funds, and put restrictions on buying (but not selling) the GameStop stock. Essentially, Wall Street changed the rules of the game—to protect themselves.
Will regulators go after social media platforms to prevent future “market manipulations” from going viral?
Are trading apps like Robinhood right to restrict retail investors while hedge funds face no restrictions?
How do deplatforming and decentralization figure into this?
One thing is certain: this saga could change the world of investment as we know it.