The Crysply News: Health Insurance for Smokers

“Have you not reason then to be ashamed, and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereofsinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you: by the custom thereof making your selves to be wondered at by all foreign civil Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned. A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”

400 years before his time, King James of England, wrote this comment to cement his stance against the barbarian substance imported from the Americas known as Tobacco. Four centuries later here we are, getting rid of this god forsaken industry day by day. Over the past few weeks I’ve heard time and time again the comparison between Crysp and insurance. The most creative amongst them had been ‘Crysp is like health insurance for smokers’.

I agree the underlying habit of day trading or speculating on stock alerts from social media is, as King James put it: an ‘abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods’. Or in other words - bad for you. With this comparison to the first American industry, Tobacco, one must ask - will this speculative investing mania assume the same fate Americas once most valuable export faces today?

Down from the 24% total trading volume it commanded just a few months ago, one could argue the current 16% retail investor trading volume today is telling us what we needed to hear: retail investing is a dying industry. Robinhood has heroically opened the floodgates allowing any grandma in the United States to yolo into gamestop. But while we were all enamored in the fact that we could, no one stopped to think if we should. Robinhood accelerated the cycle and has made everyone realize that trading, like smoking, is in fact bad for you.

Crysp offers much needed insurance for speculative traders who are addicted to the vice. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Yes, as a go-to-market we will shamelessly capitalize off the opportunity of the millions of retail investors who have been burned so many times that they want to take a healthier approach to trading. We will lure them into Crysp with the promise of a new investing world, a world where they can yolo into whichever stock they fancy, while the invisible hand of Crysp makes sure they don’t lose their hard earned money.

The Crysp dream is not to promote this opportunistic insurance of a dying industry. The Crysp dream is to usher in a new financial instrument. An investment vehicle that combines wisdom of the crowd, with advanced data science and institutional-grade strategies: all at the fingertips of retail investors. We imagine a stock market where naked equities seem like the barbaric past of the what used to be the Wild West of investing.

Robinhood-like platforms educating retail investors are trying to teach cigarette smokers the chemistry of tobacco so that they can invent a healthy alternative that offers the same thrill. It’s never going to happen and the folks running these shows know it. Instead, we need to fundamentally re-engineer the mechanics of the stock market. We need to rethink what a traceable security is, which investors can make ‘naked’ bets, and why.

There’s still a long way to go, but every day that passes I feel one step closer to building a new stock market.

Good afternoon,

Dolev