Twitch users are now investing in stocks with real money
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Twitch is the home of live video streaming and sees millions of people flock to watch their favorite streamers on a regular basis. But there's another type of streaming that's proving very popular on the service: interactive gameplay experiences, with the likes of Pokemon and Dark Souls being played with the help of viewers.
The latest interactive experience doesn't involve playing a game, though. Instead, Twitch users are playing the stock market with $50,000 of real money.
The experiment is called Stock Stream, and it's the idea of a software engineer named Mike. Mike took the time to code a user interface and stable platform on top of a real stock trading service called Robinhood.
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When the Twitch stream is active (during NYSE trading hours), viewers can vote in the comments for which stocks they want to buy or sell. A voting round lasts for 5 minutes before Mike's system calculates which trades to make based on most votes. Voters win points or lose points based on whether their vote resulted in a positive outcome. Mike intends to continue running Stock Stream until the value of the investment falls below $25,000.
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According to Polygon, Mike was initially worried about losing the $50,000 he put up as the investment very quickly. However, it turns out the Twitch voters are doing a pretty good job and he believes Stock Stream will perform well enough for at least the next couple of months.
What will be most fascinating to see if whether a fully automated system trading shares based on thousands of people voting can actually grow the investment rather than losing it. Could this make Mike a rich man?
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This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.