This Twitch Stream Is Trading Stock Using One Man's $50,000
One man is trading $50,000 of his own money with the help of Twitch.
Twitch has played Pokemon and Dark Souls, and it's installed Arch Linux on a computer--but one man has taken Twitch crowdsourcing to a new level by opening $50,000 of his own money up to Twitch viewers to invest in the stock market.
You read that right: a software developer named Mike has crowdsourced playing the stock market. The stream is set up with rounds of voting, during which viewers can vote on buy or sell commands. At the end of the round, the votes are counted by an algorithm and trades are placed.
According to Mike, he had come across this idea bouncing around in internet communities and decided to act upon it, and it turned out to be relatively straightforward. "I just read peoples buy/sell commands from the chat window, do a simple counting of each vote, take the top vote and place that trade," he told Polygon. "That part of the system was actually easy to build--the tough part was building the UI and getting the system to a stable point where it was ready [for] long term usage."
He uses a trading app called Robinhood to execute the trades; the app tracks his account balance and all of the stocks he currently owns. If the account falls below $25,000, it won't be able to trade anymore due to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority regulations.
Stock Stream, as it's called, is almost entirely automated. It begins when markets open at 9:30 AM ET, and ends when they close at 4 PM ET. Surprisingly, Mike hasn't lost much money yet from the Twitch audience, and in fact he believes that his account should last a few months.
You can check out Stock Stream on Twitch or learn more about it over at its website.
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com
Join the conversation