DeFi Raccoons and Evolving Bitcoin Narratives

Investor Ben Hunt has a specific definition for defi charlatans, raccoons. They’re the enemy. They’re not like foxes or coyotes. They steal and kill just for the sheer sport of it. It’s just what they are.

Forget about the popular culture image of raccoons, plush toys with opposable thumbs and a cute little face; they symbolize wanton criminality in the animal kingdom. It’s a good reference point for the hucksters, con men, and sometimes outright criminals who infest the financial markets. Financial raccoons come to where the money is, and that’s the markets.

Of course, this analogy leads to bitcoin. What Ben loves about bitcoin specifically, and crypto more generally, is it’s always been an almost fail-safe indicator of someone with an entrepreneurial spirit who is focused on autonomy, in the good sense of the word; a healthy amount of resistance to Wall Street and Washington.

But what always happens when you have financial innovation, is you end up with “jazz hands” bitcoin, or Bitcoin! — trademarked; meaning what you end up with from Wall Street is what you’d call a derivative, or representation of the price of bitcoin. For instance, with Microstrategy, you’re basically buying a share in a tracking stock, a levered version of the price of bitcoin. Similar to not owning gold, but gold in the form of an ETF, or a basket of gold mining stocks. And there’s nothing wrong with that, just be aware it’s an opportunity for ‘flow’, which is where all the money is for Wall Street.