memestocks are just synthetic derivatives issued by retail instead of institutions. the connection between the meme and the stock shares is less real than most people think but I don’t think that matters
the total daily notional volume for retail trading 0DTE options is roughly 150 billion per day. the actual cash retail traders spend out of pocket (the premium paid) on 0DTE options is roughly $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion per day. that’s ’per day’
so the bull case for memestocks is that some of this retail flow moves to memestocks because memestocks move just like options but the flows are controlled by culture/retail and not by citadel + they’re more relatable than Greek letters
perhaps it’s time to dream again
the reason why robinhood blockchain is so compelling is because you are now seeing memecoin / stock token pairing succeed at scale
previously only institutions could issue derivatives, so culture influencing asset buying was expressed primarily via options and spot buying
this is a paradigm shift because now any Joe in his basement can create a derivative-like asset that impacts the supply of stock tokens, which then sends demand, attention, volatility back into the underlying stock
that's amazing