I didn’t mean (but yes, I said) “a few thousand shares” once. Just like any stock hustle it doesn’t happen all at once. The pump requires repeated action, “talking it up”, seeing it go by on the ticker on CNBC, chatter from the bobbling heads, - you know, astroturfing the conversation, just like any pump and dump.
It takes some will to get momentum, but that doesn’t need to be more than a few millions, perhaps tens of millions of dollars. Chump change if you think you can extract billions, or some reasonable fraction thereof.
And this one, unlike the ones you find in the dark corners of the internet, comes pre-loaded with some of the best affinity marketing possibilities out there today. Not for you and me, obviously, but there is a whole world of opportunity in selling gold bars, survival food, Bibles, gold shoes, and yes, now stock certificates. Others are spreading “influence” around overseas like it’s warm peanut butter, and the monies changing hands are vast. You think it’s hard to manipulate this stock? Just watch.
(I’m not making a direct comparison with the frenzy associated with Game Stop, which was a different hustle altogether, but at its height at the frenzy, 150 million shares traded in a day. You don’t need to go full Game Stop and get that lucky to still have a very significant payday.)