mr. goxx, a hamster that's outdoing humans at trading cryptocurrency

MR. GOXX HAS A CRYPTO TRADING OFFICE NEXT TO HIS CAGE

germany has a new social media sensation — a crypto trading hamster that goes by the name of mr. goxx. equipped with a trading office attached to his regular cage, the business-minded rodent livestreams his crypto tradings on twitch and has been able to be up by nearly 30% since it first started buying and selling digital assets in june, 2021.

named after mt gox — a company that was once the biggest crypto exchange until it was compromised and thousands of bitcoin were stolen — the hamster goes on the wheel where he selects which cryptocurrency he would like to trade by simply spinning it. in the office he has two tunnels: one for buying and one for selling, and every time he goes through one of them, the desired transaction is completed.

mr. goxx office, an annex to his cafe
images by mr. goxx

MR. GOXX EVEN LIVESTREAMS HIS CRYPTO TRADINGS

‘if mr. goxx passes through the sell tunnel without holding the selected asset, the sell attempt will just fail (since there’s nothing he could sell),’ said mr. goxx on reddit when asked what would happen if the hamster selects a stock that he hasn’t bought. ‘currently the buy amounts are hardcoded (fixed amounts) but buying increments to build bigger positions is possible. there are plans to enable him selecting buy amounts according to his will in future expansions of the system.’

a diagram of the hamster’s office

first reported by protos, mr. goxx’s portfolio was initially funded with the euro equivalent of $390 in their exchange in june 2012. three months later, the mr. goxx had managed to grow his overall asset portfolio to $498. the media also reported that as of mid-september, its portfolio was up nearly 50%. following the crypto sell-off, the hamster is currently up 20% at around $468.

‘unlike other hamsters, [mr. goxx] owns a fully automated high-tech trading office, directly connected to his normal hamster-friendly home (he can enter and leave it whenever he wants),’ says the twitch profile description. ‘by running in the wheel, mr. goxx is able to select certain assets and by entering one of the tunnels, he decides whether to place a buy or sell order, which is then sent over to a real trading platform via API (yes, real money involved).’

two german men in their 30s are behind mr. goxx. ‘we felt that everything keeps getting more expensive these days and building savings is super-hard to achieve with high rents to pay,’ they told BBC. ‘it seems like most people from our generation see no other chance than throwing a lot of their savings on the crypto market, without having a clue what’s going on there. we were joking about whether my hamster would be able to make smarter investment decisions than we humans do.’

mr. goxx, the first cryptocurrency trading hamster