Shreyas Hariharan

I had an observation four years back about investing as entertainment. Robinhood isn’t competing with Interactive Brokers and Charles Schwab; it is competing with TikTok and Instagram. This phenomenon has only accelerated, and it’s not stopping.

Nearly everything that consumes our attention is being turned into markets: sports (sports betting), elections (prediction markets), memes (memecoins), and culture (labubus). We’re moving from dopamine-driven social experiences to dopamine-driven financial experiences.

The desire for financial speculation has existed throughout human history, especially during the late stages of empires. But the supply is unprecedented. A casino in every town and in the pocket of every individual wasn’t legal or socially acceptable for most of human history. Today, it is.

Hundreds of millions of people are trading meme stocks and crypto currencies, betting on sports games, gambling in online casinos, and buying lottery tickets. In this blog, I’m going to examine financial speculation in the 21st century: why people are drawn to it, how apps hook users, how the law made it possible, and how this compares to other periods in history.

I currently lead consumer at Monad, a high performance blockchain. I previously cofounded Llama, a crypto product backed by Founders Fund, Electric Capital, and Elad Gil. I play pickleball and basketball, and do standup in New York City.