Back in the go-go days of the late 1960s stock market bubble, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average was flirting with the “Graveyard in the Sky” level of 1000, we cynics used to joke about the next generation of speculative wretched excess: “factored options”. A security option lets you bet on the appreciation or decline of the underlying instrument without putting up the capital to actually buy or sell it, and without running the risk, as you do in selling short or in a futures market trade, of losing more than you originally invested. For these advantages, you pay the price of having a time limit on your bet. If the underlying instrument doesn’t go the way you bet before the option’s “strike date”, your option expires “out of the money”, which is another way to say “you’re out of your money”.
But this is your father’s speculation, we said. Why not options on options, or “factored options”? You see, you can buy and sell options like any other paper asset, so there’s no reason you can’t create an option on an option. If a staid, exchange-listed stock option offers, say, 10 to 1 leverage, then our under-the-counter market options on that option could go to 100 to 1 and, if that’s not enough, why not options on options on options and so ad infinitum.
Well, now let’s talk about factored scams. A factored scam is a scam on which the underlying item being sold is also a scam. And here we go! On 2021-10-19, we have this announcement, “First Carbon Develops Proprietary NFT Based Carbon Credits Trading Platform and Launches Company Website”.
Let me quote,
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — First Carbon Corp., (“First Carbon” or “FCC” or the “Company”) developers of the world’s first decentralized carbon credit non-fungible token (“NFT”) onboarding platform, is pleased to announce it has launched FirstCarbonCorp.com to introduce its proprietary platform leveraging the power of NFTs on the blockchain. The platform, provides carbon credit issuers an “on ramp” to the blockchain, while enabling users to track, trade and burn credits in a simple and secure way accessible to everyone, everywhere.
First Carbon has pioneered the use of NFTs to digitize and allow for the trading of tokenized carbon credits in order to bring transparency and liquidity to the global carbon offset market. The aim of its new proprietary decentralized platform is to enable offset trading on existing tokenized exchanges.
First Carbon’s NFTs will be minted on a proof of stake consensus blockchain that connects Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks into one, to enable a multi-chain Ethereum ecosystem. The platform was chosen to ensure that the project would be interoperable with the Ethereum blockchain while ensuring that minting activities will be both low emission and cost.
Now, if you’re a stick in the mud stuck in the antediluvian mire like me who assumed that financial assets actually represented something in the real world, let me clue you in that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the mechanism to “monetise” digital “assets” such as Melania Trump’s blue eyes. Carbon credits are indulgences sold by the Church of Gaia whereby consumption sinners may expiate their wicked acts by planting trees (or, more commonly, paying communist front grifters who skim 98% of the money contributed and plant a tree every other year or so).
First Carbon’s factored scam brings these together in a fiery marriage consummated on the blockchain. Let’s just savour the scammy buzzwords from this press release:
decentralized carbon credit non-fungible token proprietary platform leveraging “on ramp” blockchain transparency liquidity “proof of stake” consensus “multi-chain Ethereum ecosystem” interoperable “Permissionless global trading” “emerging asset class” “global pool of liquidity” “Programmable functionality” “smart contracts” “composable primitives” “new types of capital formation and trading” “slick user experience”
Well, as a long-term connoisseur of scams, it sound pretty slick to me—not so much in the “user experience”, but rather in fleecing the innocents it attracts into its shearing pen. This is such a sound investment, grounded in economic and environmental fundamentals, that they are promoting it by sponsored tweets on Twitter.
I wonder if I can sell factored options on their carbon credit NFTs? Hmmm….