How did the Walen Paper Company, Eightco, use world coins to perform alchemy that caused its stock price to big pump by 5000%? The absurd drama of memeification in the US stock market.

A corrugated paper company invested in the world coin, and its share price soared by nearly 5,000%. This is not an inspirational story of technological transformation, but an elaborate financial alchemy. Here's an in-depth look at how narratives, dilutions, and celebrity endorsements join forces to stage a capital game that pushes Wall Street to absurd new heights. (Synopsis: Worldcoin (World Network) Arrives in Taiwan!) Scan iris “real person verification” to register World ID to receive world coins) (Background supplement: World coin (WLD) soared in two days, what is the newly promoted “World ID 2.0”? A corrugated packaging company based in Pennsylvania, Eightco, it's like the kind of company you'll never read about on the front page, quiet, traditional, and even a little boring. However, on Monday this week, the sleeping company swallowed a digital pill called WorldCoin, instantly turning into a Godzilla in the capital markets. Eightco's stock price (symbol OCTO) galloped like a wild horse in just a few hours, soaring nearly 5,000% at one point. The company's market capitalization ballooned from millions of dollars to more than $200 million. The trading volume reached 54,000 times the average of the past 20 days. The market is crazy, but behind this madness, there are no technological breakthroughs, no revolutionary products, only a well-woven story. A story about OpenAI founder Sam Altman, about a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin, and the cryptocurrency that fueled BitMine. Eightco Announces Raising $270 Million to Invest Worldcoin Eightco has announced that it will raise $270 million through a private placement, betting the company's future entirely on Worldcoin, making it the company's most important reserve asset. It also brought in Dan Ives, one of Wall Street's most storytelling analysts, as chairman, and plans to change the ticker symbol to “ORBS,” a nod to Worldcoin's iris scanners. This is not only a business transformation, but also a complete “skin surgery”. The company's real product is no longer a corrugated box, but its own stock, a financial product that has been repackaged, labeled AI and Crypto, ready to be sold at a high price on the open market. But at the same time, this 5,000% surge also reveals a disturbing truth about contemporary financial markets: we are in a giant “attention casino” where fundamentals are dead and narrative is king. The birth of the financial chimera: an elaborate narrative arbitrage Let's use a scalpel to cut through the core of this event precisely. This is not an inspirational story of a traditional company embracing the future, but a textbook-level “narrative arbitrage” operation. It's like the Chimera in ancient Greek mythology, a monster made of a lion's head, a sheep's body, and a snake's tail: Eightco's new company is a financial Chimera spliced together from a “dying public company body”, a “hot cryptocurrency head” and a “celebrity endorsement wing”. The process of its birth is roughly as follows: Find a host: First, you need a perfect “host”, a public company that trades on the public market but has a very low market capitalization, lacks imagination in its business, and is almost forgotten. Eightco fits all the boxes perfectly. Its low market capitalization means that it only needs relatively little capital to leverage its share price; Its legal listing status provides a regulated and seemingly compliant “shell” for the subsequent capital operation. Infuse the narrative: Next, inject this boring body with the hottest and sexiest narrative of the current market. What could be more explosive than the combination of “Sam Altman”, “AI” and “cryptocurrency”? Worldcoin, a project founded by Altman that attempts to solve the identity problem in the age of AI with iris scanning, is the perfect narrative engine, albeit controversial. Capital ignition: Once the story is told, fuel is needed to ignite the enthusiasm of the market. That's the real purpose of that $270 million private fundraising. Pay attention to the deal structure: MOZAYYX, which led the investment, BitMine, and a number of crypto giants such as Pantera and Kraken, entered the market at a price of $1.46 per share. That means they've locked in an astronomical potential return before the stock price skyrockets. This huge financing not only provided Eightco with ammunition to buy WLD, but more importantly, it sent a strong signal to the market: “smart money” has come in, what are you waiting for? Authoritative PAMP: The last step was to bring in a host for the show. The addition of Dan Ives, Tesla's super-bull and senior Wall Street analyst, is that megaphone. His role is not to guide how to better produce corrugated paper, but to use his fame and credibility to provide a “credit boost” to the spliced financial product. His statement that “the future of AI requires Worldcoin” sounded more like a slogan for an IPO roadshow than a well-thought-out corporate strategy. When these four steps are completed, a financial chimera born for speculation is born. To be honest, I believe its greatest value is to maximize wealth in the open market for its creators and early participants. The original shareholders and business are just insignificant sacrifices in this capital alchemy. Shareholders' Nightmare: Diluted Shares Eightco announced that it will raise $250 million through a private placement at a price of $1.46 per share for the purchase of world coins, as well as an additional $20 million strategic investment from bitcoin miner BitMine. This means that approximately 185 million new shares will be issued. This is a staggering dilution of equity. It may be a betrayal for longtime shareholders who held Eightco stock before it skyrocketed. What they originally invested in was a stable packaging company, and overnight, the company's balance sheet was completely rewritten and turned into a highly centralized cryptocurrency speculative fund. The fate of the company is no longer determined by its ability to operate, but entirely by the price of WLD, a single, highly volatile asset. Others include crypto giants such as MOZAYYX, Pantera, Brevan Howard, and BitMine, which acquired a lot of ammunition at a low price of $1.46, and when market sentiment was ignited and the stock price soared into the sky, they were in an extremely favorable exit position. But is this a long-term investment in the company's future, or a premeditated, organized, short-term harvest that exploits market frenzy? Welcome to Attention Casino: When Value is Defined by Traffic At a deeper level, if the Eightco event is a well-orchestrated market manipulation, the macro environment in which it succeeds is the “memeticization” of the entire market. Once upon a time, Wall Street was the temple of capital allocation, with analysts immersed in earnings reports and cash flow forecasts trying to find a reasonable price for assets. Now… It looks more and more like a noisy “attention casino”. In this casino, it was decided…