Hard-Coded Stock

It sounds like a vision of the future of stock trading, where blockchains have taken over the equity markets, and where we use cryptocurrencies to buy hard-coded stocks, while spending most of our time in VR simulators shooting at aliens and dancing the floss with avatars that look like Spider-Man wearing medieval armor and a fox's tail.

But, sadly, the term "hard-coded stock" is much more pedestrian. It's just the name for plain old stock tickers. Like...Microsoft has the ticker MSFT, and Apple has APPL.

These three-and-four-letter signifiers ease the process of stock trading. They're like nicknames, but each one is unique to a particular company. That way, you don't try to buy the iPhone maker Apple and end up buying a company that owns a bunch of orchards in California.