Jill Carlson: What the Robinhood Rally Shares With Crypto

Robinhood doubled its trading revenue in the second quarter, and more old-school competitors like TD Ameritrade and E-Trade saw their own numbers jump by more than 50%.There is an exciting argument that this rise in retail trading activity will flow from the stock market into the crypto markets.

In many ways, crypto markets deserve credit for paving the way for this new trading trend.

WSB, as the community is often called, is a group where day traders go to brag, share memes and show off battle scars from the markets.

Davey Day Trader similarly must be mentioned in any conversation about the retail rally of the last six months.

Here, I could trace Davey Day Trader to the many crypto YouTube celebrities who share their technical insights and their trading strategies.

Three years ago, during the height of the crypto bull market, the narrative of the gamification of trading emerged.

So if the products, culture and behavior of cryptocurrency are a precursor for those of mainstream markets, what is to come? I believe we will see the continued emergence of pseudonymous forums where traders will be judged on their track records as opposed to the prestige of their fund.

Financial media of the future might look more like Crypto Twitter, dominated by animal avatars and joke names, than CNBC.We may also see the rise of tip jars for trading insights, a regular feature on the landing pages of crypto traders and technicians.

More privately, Telegram groups have served crypto traders for years - both in executing trades and also in sharing market insights.

Crypto markets in 2016 and 2017 have in many ways foreshadowed the stock market of today.