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If there was anything missing from the average American’s economic wellbeing, it was the ability to create bespoke financial products to scalably make bets agai

by tyre 5mo ago

If there was anything missing from the average American’s economic wellbeing, it was the ability to create bespoke financial products to scalably make bets against informed professional traders while they sleep.

jkukul 5mo ago
Quite ironic. The original Robin Hood took from the rich and gave to the poor. Robinhood, the app, seems to do the exact opposite: it helps the rich get richer at the expense of regular folk.
- cute_boi 5mo ago
  They turned Robin Hood to Robbin’ the Hood
  - toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    This was always the Robin Hood play (versus being a grown up brokerage), they are simply griftmaxxing now in a "low regulatory environment". Like Coinbase, they need volume to succeed economically, not buy and hold investors. Crypto volume is down, so Coinbase revenue is down. Young people have little to no cashflow, but they have high intent to gamble in a crushing and financially nihilistic macro, which Robin Hood serves. https://www.npr.org/2026/04/05/nx-s1-5762276/teens-getting-hooked-on-gambling-sports-betting https://www.npr.org/2026/04/05/nx-s1-5762276/teens-getting-h... https://kyla.substack.com/p/gen-z-and-financial-nihilism https://kyla.substack.com/p/gen-z-and-financial-nihilism https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://youngmoneyweekly.substack.com/p/the-golden-age-of-grift https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://youngmone... https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/squid-game/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://coinmarke...
- dvh 5mo ago
  Well, have your seen the current size of Sherwood forest
- Jagerbizzle 5mo ago
  I believe you’re confusing access with outcomes. Giving people access to markets isn’t exploitation afaic. If you’d like to make dubious trades that’s your prerogative and who am I to stop you.
  - demorro 5mo ago
    You are a member of society. Society stops people doing harmful things to themselves all the time.
    - nine_k 5mo ago
      This should be limited to giving advice (education, warning, explicit consent), unless there's harm to third parties. Because, you know, certain actions and even thoughts can lead to eternal damnation in Hell, according to what a society may think. Would you prefer the society to hold you off from that?
      - adithyassekhar 5mo ago
        People claim this all the time to win internet arguments but the truth is we all have a moral code. If you see a child playing with a loaded gun, you won’t stop it?
        nine_k 5mo ago
        A child is not a fully autonomous person. I would of course take the loaded gun from the child, unload it, and explain its dangers to the child. Money, in any form, may be as dangerous as a loaded gun, trading stocks or not. Most adults are careful with money, as they are with loaded guns. The problem is that some parties may try to make trading stocks (even leveraged) look much easier and safer than it is. It's like giving somebody a real loaded gun, while making it look like a toy gun, safe even for a child. And this of course needs to be regulated: not the trading, but the disclosure. This is not a toy.
        5mo ago
vasco 5mo ago
And the one time an internet meme exploded a stock they literally hid the buy button from their UI. At least they have confetti animations.
- Esophagus4 5mo ago
  This was not due to malice but instead, incompetence. They didn’t have enough cash to clear their trades. I have ranted on here before about the SV startup mindset of “I don’t need to know anything about the industry I’m ‘disrupting’ nor do I need to play by their rules” and this was an example of that. On that day, everybody who was actually in capital markets went, “what f-ing idiots those guys are” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze
nyrikki 5mo ago
Especially because it will reduce the entropy that constrains the big guys from building a Dutch book (money pump) against the little guy. I am sure there are some very happy people in the larger firms due to this news.
Johnny555 5mo ago
And not just informed professional traders -- also insiders with privileged information about world events that let them trade before the news hits. Now AI agents are going to be chasing phantom signals that look like they might be evidence of an insider's move.
pants2 5mo ago
I disagree, AI agents could help level the playing field. Citadel doesn't have any AI models that are better than what you or I have. Market data is more accessible than ever. As LLMs get better at trading, the difference in capability between you and a professional trader gets smaller. Also, Claude knows about a lot of the traps that consumers can fall into: spread, execution, risk concentration, etc. -- high chance that if I tell Claude I'm thinking of going all in on AMC because some Reddit post told me to, it'll say "slow down cowboy"
- mhitza 5mo ago
  > it'll say "slow down cowboy" Maybe if you prompt it to be highly critical of you, the user. Otherwise it will absolutely right you out of money.
- voncheese 5mo ago
  Could this be a good thing - yes Will it be is a different thing though. And if it’s not, who exactly is accountable? With funds and portfolio managers that run them, there’s a clear accountability model (if the fund sucks, the manager loses their job and the company loses credibility) With AI agents doing the management, who is accountable when the fund sucks? If it’s the customer, we’ve moved accountability from someone who at least in theory, knows what they’re doing to someone who has little to no clue.
  - pants2 5mo ago
    You have to be accountable for what you have the model do on your behalf. I hear what you're saying, but there are also issues with the hedge fund accountability model. There are certainly swaths of fund managers who are only there because they got lucky or had the right pedigree, and more that are better traders but never became a fund manager because they got unlucky or had other passions. An individual investor can invest with their risk appetite on their time horizon and not be subject to Citadel's "5% draw down in a quarter and you're fired" culture which can be toxic to returns over time.
- mistrial9 5mo ago
  I believe that your individual ability to execute an order is constrained such that some of the difference is removed. On the other hand, the overall thesis has merits IMHO
ryandrake 5mo ago
LOL. This is the outcome when a Product Manager sits there and says "You know, people just aren't losing enough money on sports betting and gambling apps. How can we fix this?"
georgeecollins 5mo ago
Even better for America's well being will be if thousands of individual investors have identical or near identical bots for sophisticated financial institutions to exploit while they sleep.

by tyre 5mo ago

jkukul 5mo ago

Quite ironic. The original Robin Hood took from the rich and gave to the poor. Robinhood, the app, seems to do the exact opposite: it helps the rich get richer at the expense of regular folk.

cute_boi 5mo ago
They turned Robin Hood to Robbin’ the Hood
- toomuchtodo 5mo ago
  This was always the Robin Hood play (versus being a grown up brokerage), they are simply griftmaxxing now in a "low regulatory environment". Like Coinbase, they need volume to succeed economically, not buy and hold investors. Crypto volume is down, so Coinbase revenue is down. Young people have little to no cashflow, but they have high intent to gamble in a crushing and financially nihilistic macro, which Robin Hood serves. https://www.npr.org/2026/04/05/nx-s1-5762276/teens-getting-hooked-on-gambling-sports-betting https://www.npr.org/2026/04/05/nx-s1-5762276/teens-getting-h... https://kyla.substack.com/p/gen-z-and-financial-nihilism https://kyla.substack.com/p/gen-z-and-financial-nihilism https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://youngmoneyweekly.substack.com/p/the-golden-age-of-grift https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://youngmone... https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/squid-game/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240226104327/https://coinmarke...
dvh 5mo ago
Well, have your seen the current size of Sherwood forest
Jagerbizzle 5mo ago
I believe you’re confusing access with outcomes. Giving people access to markets isn’t exploitation afaic. If you’d like to make dubious trades that’s your prerogative and who am I to stop you.
- demorro 5mo ago
  You are a member of society. Society stops people doing harmful things to themselves all the time.
  - nine_k 5mo ago
    This should be limited to giving advice (education, warning, explicit consent), unless there's harm to third parties. Because, you know, certain actions and even thoughts can lead to eternal damnation in Hell, according to what a society may think. Would you prefer the society to hold you off from that?
    - adithyassekhar 5mo ago
      People claim this all the time to win internet arguments but the truth is we all have a moral code. If you see a child playing with a loaded gun, you won’t stop it?
      - nine_k 5mo ago
        A child is not a fully autonomous person. I would of course take the loaded gun from the child, unload it, and explain its dangers to the child. Money, in any form, may be as dangerous as a loaded gun, trading stocks or not. Most adults are careful with money, as they are with loaded guns. The problem is that some parties may try to make trading stocks (even leveraged) look much easier and safer than it is. It's like giving somebody a real loaded gun, while making it look like a toy gun, safe even for a child. And this of course needs to be regulated: not the trading, but the disclosure. This is not a toy.
        5mo ago

vasco 5mo ago

And the one time an internet meme exploded a stock they literally hid the buy button from their UI. At least they have confetti animations.

Esophagus4 5mo ago
This was not due to malice but instead, incompetence. They didn’t have enough cash to clear their trades. I have ranted on here before about the SV startup mindset of “I don’t need to know anything about the industry I’m ‘disrupting’ nor do I need to play by their rules” and this was an example of that. On that day, everybody who was actually in capital markets went, “what f-ing idiots those guys are” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze

nyrikki 5mo ago

Especially because it will reduce the entropy that constrains the big guys from building a Dutch book (money pump) against the little guy. I am sure there are some very happy people in the larger firms due to this news.

Johnny555 5mo ago

And not just informed professional traders -- also insiders with privileged information about world events that let them trade before the news hits. Now AI agents are going to be chasing phantom signals that look like they might be evidence of an insider's move.

pants2 5mo ago

I disagree, AI agents could help level the playing field. Citadel doesn't have any AI models that are better than what you or I have. Market data is more accessible than ever. As LLMs get better at trading, the difference in capability between you and a professional trader gets smaller. Also, Claude knows about a lot of the traps that consumers can fall into: spread, execution, risk concentration, etc. -- high chance that if I tell Claude I'm thinking of going all in on AMC because some Reddit post told me to, it'll say "slow down cowboy"

mhitza 5mo ago
> it'll say "slow down cowboy" Maybe if you prompt it to be highly critical of you, the user. Otherwise it will absolutely right you out of money.
voncheese 5mo ago
Could this be a good thing - yes Will it be is a different thing though. And if it’s not, who exactly is accountable? With funds and portfolio managers that run them, there’s a clear accountability model (if the fund sucks, the manager loses their job and the company loses credibility) With AI agents doing the management, who is accountable when the fund sucks? If it’s the customer, we’ve moved accountability from someone who at least in theory, knows what they’re doing to someone who has little to no clue.
- pants2 5mo ago
  You have to be accountable for what you have the model do on your behalf. I hear what you're saying, but there are also issues with the hedge fund accountability model. There are certainly swaths of fund managers who are only there because they got lucky or had the right pedigree, and more that are better traders but never became a fund manager because they got unlucky or had other passions. An individual investor can invest with their risk appetite on their time horizon and not be subject to Citadel's "5% draw down in a quarter and you're fired" culture which can be toxic to returns over time.
mistrial9 5mo ago
I believe that your individual ability to execute an order is constrained such that some of the difference is removed. On the other hand, the overall thesis has merits IMHO

ryandrake 5mo ago

LOL. This is the outcome when a Product Manager sits there and says "You know, people just aren't losing enough money on sports betting and gambling apps. How can we fix this?"

georgeecollins 5mo ago

Even better for America's well being will be if thousands of individual investors have identical or near identical bots for sophisticated financial institutions to exploit while they sleep.