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1/ The SpaceX market inclusion story is finally getting the attention it deserves. But reveals something that is always true about markets.

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com

yes!! prospect.org/2026/05/20/e...

prospect.orgElon Musk’s Plan to Make You Invest in SpaceX - The American ProspectHe’s got his eye on your retirement savings and his net worth.

Mike

@misaligned.markets

2/ The short version is that rule changes by Nasdaq will accelerate the inclusion and weight of SpaceX in the index. Because many passive investors (arguably most investors) interact with indexes, they're going to be holding this stock whether they want to or not. bsky.app/profile/esqu...

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28/5/26, 6:46 pm0 reposts0 likes

Mike

@misaligned.markets

28 May

3/ Markets always assign actions to participants based on their role. A market maker or adversarial participant can condition an assigned action on missing context or some other structure of the market. The result is an enforced action asymmetry where the counterparty must “take it or leave it.”

misaligned.marketsThe geometry of rules (or how to "game the system")The way players cheese games reveals how markets, networks, and other systems are exploited.

Mike

@misaligned.markets

28 May

4/ The SpaceX IPO is the perfect embodiment of markets because it shows that markets are “interfaces” that allow market makers, like Nasdaq, to define a counterparty’s exit options in advance. This isn't unique to markets. Any interface mapping a system's states to reality has this vulnerability.

misaligned.marketsThe geometry of rules (or how to "game the system")The way players cheese games reveals how markets, networks, and other systems are exploited.

Mike

@misaligned.markets

28 May

5/ To wrap my head around markets as interfaces, I often make analogies to internet browsers. Browsers translate network states into human-legible data. To do this, you must trust them to load scripts and other content. Counterparties (hackers) take advantage of that trust to steer browser behavior.

misaligned.marketsThe geometry of rules (or how to "game the system")The way players cheese games reveals how markets, networks, and other systems are exploited.