Reddit banishment theory

For several years both Reddit and Lego have been teasing the notion of an IPO. Meanwhile RobinHood, for example, went from kicking the IPO tires to a live ticker in a matter of months; the process doesn't need to take years.

What if today's banishment of r/thePPshow wasn't due to bad behavior, but for the sake of OPTICS for what's around the corner? Imagine you're Reddit, secretly planning to IPO but in a novel, new way. Lo and behold, some pesky morons in a fringe but growing sub stumble upon & publish information on Reddit's own platform which hits too close for comfort, possibly seen as a legal liability for their and their business partners' plans?

Now imagine you're a business wanting to create a new blockchain-based securities exchange. This platform would need more than 1 company trading on it - as was originally the case with tZero for Overstock. Ideally you'd go to market with at least a handful of well-known companies on your exchange to add immediate legitimacy to your new platform.

I'm not saying Reddit is a likely member of the theorized "keiretsu" or M&A with BuyBuyBaby or GME, etc., but Reddit & Lego may be participants in this future blockchain exchange. They'd be at least 2 household names IPO/ICO'ing on the exchange to bring the required legitimacy and volume. Remember that legally it will be next to impossible for companies who've already committed their shares to the DTC and the legacy system to recall their shares & move them to an entirely new system. The new platform needs virgin companies (which can then acquire legacy companies).

Reddit & the Lego Group aren't dumb & are likely abundantly aware of risks in the US stock market - especially Reddit, which literally hosted origin story of our individual journeys. The last press on Reddit's potential IPO was from February in which it was said the IPO was "likely in the second half of 2023". There's been no word on which exchange, and all we know is they filed an IPO "confidential draft registration statement" with the SEC in late 2021.

Yes, Fidelity is a major investor in Reddit, as is Sequoia, but they also stand to profit from this play and may even consider such investments as hedges against an idiosyncratic risk in the legacy markets. This assumes they're not significantly exposed to the blast radius of rampant securities fraud. Aside from a few misinformed customer service reps and the 2M peek-a-boo GME shares available for loan, Fidelity is by and large one of the lesser evils (known) in the brokerage realm, has presented the least friction to DRSing, and is transparently reporting data most brokerages don't (although accuracy of that data isn't regulated). Maybe this dinosaur thinks it can survive the impending comet?

/speculation