Buy The Dip: RuneScape, ECB vs BTC, rethinking the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Always read the comments

I’m back online! While I was away I enjoyed Louis’s extravagantly detailed, 3000-word deep dive into RuneScape, the bizarrely long-lived game that CVC recently ponied up almost £1bn for.

I’m only familiar with the game by reputation, but this made me think I’ve missed out.

Thanks to a reasonably sophisticated in-game economy, it has offered players a rudimentary education in bid-ask spreads, arbitrage, price gouging, scarcity value and more

And people say that computer games are a waste of time. Some people pay Wharton $200k to learn these things. But as is is often the case with Alphaville posts, the comments are worth checking out. Like this one from “3.1 is too many Basels”:

Clicking on things until they explode is how I got so good at finding optimal capital structures.

Anyway, this week’s links:

📈 Reimagining the SPR. Really interesting, chunky guest post from Daleep Singh and Arnab Datta.

📈 Giant shorts around the globe. One of my favourite things about Alphaville is that even when a post idea doesn’t quite turn out to be as interesting as we thought, the journey and data work can still be interesting enough to post.

📈 CRE is the key to regional banks’ bond spreads. This story arc isn’t done yet.

📈 Are investors prepared for *checks notes* nuclear war in space? Space boom, meet actual boom

📈 The European Central Bank is not happy about bitcoin ETFs. HFSP, ECB.

📈 Will a second inflation wave turn the AI boom into a winter of discontent? Bryce tackles the latest Kolanovic note.

📈 If a services export collapses in the woods, and nobody hears it for ages, does it make a discourse? Louis examines the Resolution Foundation’s recent trade paper.

📈 “Unexpected responses from ChatGPT” When generative AI goes wild.

📈 Want an S&P tracker except worse? Hedge funds have you covered.

📈 A teardown of Barclays’ 2026 growth ambitions. Structural hedges and American dreams

📈 The FCA gives up on Globo prosecutions. Greek travesty.

📈 Is it PIK-up time for cash-strapped companies? Having failed to make it, more firms may try to fake it