In this video by Ivan on Tech, Ivan rails against the Robinhood app for blocking future purchases of Gamestop stock. He then explains the benefits of decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap. Decentralized exchanges run on blockchain technology, therefore no single person or organization can control them.
By now most people know the story, but in case you don’t: Gamestop, a failing brick and mortar retail chain, got a shot in the arm when the e-commerce veteran Ryan Cohen joined its board. Gamestop stock jumped for a time, and elite Wall Street hedge funds shorted it, hoping to make money when the stock dropped. Meanwhile, casual stock traders and meme dealers on Reddit caught wind of the short strategy and decided to buy Gamestop as a joke. However, it snowballed, and ordinary investors using the Robinhood trading app have piled on the stock and made fortunes in the process. The hedges that shorted the stock have to pay back their initial investments and are on the hook for billions of dollars- billions that will bankrupt them. The common people are using the strategies of the elites and beating the elites at their own game.
The latest development is Robinhood siding with the Wall Street insiders, and prohibiting further purchasing of Gamestop, AMC, and other “meme” stocks. Robinhood is run by a company and executives who are either beholden to, or in league with other tycoons. This makes decentralized exchanges so important. In the video, Ivan goes on to explain Uniswap and how it is used to trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He predicts that publicly traded companies will be available on Uniswap in the near future.
