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Meet Mr. Goxx, a Crypto-Trading Hamster Who Is Out-Investing Warren Buffet

This is not Mr. Goxx, but it's close enough.
This is not Mr. Goxx, but it's close enough. | Kerrick/iStock via Getty Images

The financial world is an unpredictable beast that can see fortunes raised or ruined in a matter of minutes. Investors often look to sages like Warren Buffet for advice. But maybe they should be consulting with a hamster instead.

According to NPR, a rodent named Mr. Goxx has been outperforming his human investment wizard counterparts in the trading of cryptocurrency. Mr. Goxx makes his selections by sprinting on a hamster wheel, which corresponds with a choice of investment. Then Mr. Goxx chooses one of two tunnels in his habitat to move through. The choice of tunnel determines whether the currency will be bought or sold.

You can see Mr. Goxx's first performance review below.

Mr. Goxx’s caretakers have furnished his cage with wooden furniture emblazoned with “Goxx Capital.” (The name is a nod to the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox, which was compromised by hackers who stole the equivalent of $460 million worth of Bitcoin. It declared bankruptcy in 2014.) His daily trades are broadcast live on Twitch.

If Mr. Goxx’s Twitter is to be believed, his trading has been netting some stellar results. He’s up 20 percent, or better than Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway and the S&P 500.

The humans making (presumably) real money based on Mr. Goxx’s behaviors are two men from Germany who have not yet identified themselves other than to say that one is a lecturer and the other a programmer. (His country of origin is fitting: hamster is taken from the German word hamstern, which means “to hoard.”) It’s safe to say the message of this kind of hamster theater is that the investment world is highly volatile and a bit of a gamble.

“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,” one of them told the BBC. “We were joking about whether my hamster would be able to make smarter investment decisions than we humans do.”

So far, so good. But the men are quick to add that Mr. Goxx’s activities should not be taken as investment advice.

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