The Reputation Market Gets Closer with Film Futures
So if you are reading about this "real-money movie box office futures exchange" being created by Cantor and thinking it is the weirdest thing imaginable, you're not wrong! Mostly because the terms of trading seem insufficient-"contracts on the Cantor exchange will trade at $1 for every $1 million a movie is expected to bring in" with just long and short positions-to make it worthwhile to trade on the box office expectations of films. But this could go extremely well. We refer you back to the reputation market, which draws nearer every day. Monetizing popular expectations? Check. A database for everyone to check in with and mess around with the hourly surge of popular judgment? Check! A currency tied to, um, nothing related or tangible at all? Hoorah! Finally we're living in the future.
What would be really interesting and useful is for somebody to set up an online cinema ticket exchange, so that next weekend's tickets, or next month's or tonight's, could be constantly repriced. Then speculators (scalpers but also people hoping to be the suppliers of scalpers) and individuals could see some real volatility and liquidity.
"We have to live on pure prestige now, and that's a very thin way to live." — Bruce Sterling, Distraction
"A currency tied to, um, nothing related or tangible at all? Hoorah! Finally we're living in the future."
I'd say we've been there for a while now. The stock market already works like this.
And then maybe Cantor could start some sort of concern where horses run against each other, and customers can invest in and trade expectations of their relative speed.
We are all horses now.