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The Onion Futures Act is a United States law banning the trading of futures contracts on onions as well as "motion picture box office receipts" Onions, I can u

The Onion Futures Act is a United States law banning the trading of futures contracts on onions as well as "motion picture box office receipts" Onions, I can understand, but motion picture box office receipts? That's kind of silly.

daft_pink 3y ago
Motion picture box office receipts seems like a form of gambling as there is no natural massive purchasing counter party that cares the way that a farmer wants to avoid the price falling too much and the restaurant wants to avoid the price rising too much and both might want to lock in their price.
- kylebenzle 3y ago
  Wow! Box office futures are illegal because Max Kieser, the Blockstream shill, tried to start an online exchange in the dot com boom but the US Senate and the motion picture industry shot him down. Saying futures could too easily be manipulated by the studios. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_office_futures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_office_futures
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    thats a misreading, Canton Fitzgerald tried to do it for real in 2007 and the regulator was all for it, which is what got the MPAA to leverage their lobbying muscle
yieldcrv 3y ago
someone did a very detailed proposal to create box office futures - bet on how much money a movie will make, hedge against a flop after your big marketing budget was spent to make it awesome - the CFTC (futures regulator) was super into it, like too into it, and wanted to extend regulations to movie studios internally like information firewalls just like is seen in investment banks, so that people felt the market was fair. the MPAA was really against that, and used their lobbying muscle to get Congress to ban it completely before it ever happened. They slid it inside the financial reform bill that was made to address the overleveraged real estate derivatives after the 2008 financial crisis. I think it would have been a lot of fun, and in 2023 we have semi-unstoppable onchain prediction markets with moderate levels of liquidity now in the crypto space. But yeah, lots of bad faith power moves by everyone in this case.

daft_pink 3y ago

Motion picture box office receipts seems like a form of gambling as there is no natural massive purchasing counter party that cares the way that a farmer wants to avoid the price falling too much and the restaurant wants to avoid the price rising too much and both might want to lock in their price.

kylebenzle 3y ago
Wow! Box office futures are illegal because Max Kieser, the Blockstream shill, tried to start an online exchange in the dot com boom but the US Senate and the motion picture industry shot him down. Saying futures could too easily be manipulated by the studios. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_office_futures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_office_futures
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  thats a misreading, Canton Fitzgerald tried to do it for real in 2007 and the regulator was all for it, which is what got the MPAA to leverage their lobbying muscle

yieldcrv 3y ago

someone did a very detailed proposal to create box office futures - bet on how much money a movie will make, hedge against a flop after your big marketing budget was spent to make it awesome - the CFTC (futures regulator) was super into it, like too into it, and wanted to extend regulations to movie studios internally like information firewalls just like is seen in investment banks, so that people felt the market was fair. the MPAA was really against that, and used their lobbying muscle to get Congress to ban it completely before it ever happened. They slid it inside the financial reform bill that was made to address the overleveraged real estate derivatives after the 2008 financial crisis. I think it would have been a lot of fun, and in 2023 we have semi-unstoppable onchain prediction markets with moderate levels of liquidity now in the crypto space. But yeah, lots of bad faith power moves by everyone in this case.