Sounding V

On May 17, 1792, two dozen traders and merchants met by a buttonwood tree in lower Manhattan. They came together to sign a written agreement – which had been under discussion for several months – that committed them to trade with each other exclusively, and at a set price.

The rationale for doing so was to strengthen trust in commercial dealings and better protect their investors. The so-called Buttonwood Agreement became, in time, the basis for the New York Stock Exchange, which developed into the dominant investment mechanism in the US and, eventually, the world.

At its inception only five securities were traded: three government bonds and two bank stocks. Today there are -2,300 companies listed on the NYSE, and some -2,800 investible assets are traded daily.

On May 20^th 2026, 85,469 days after the 24 traders signed their names to the Buttonwood Agreement, the US company SpaceX filed a S-1 form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, confirming its intention to become a public joint stock company and list SpaceX shares on the NYSE.

From page 136 of SpaceX’s S-1 filing:

For the entirety of its existence, human civilization has lived on a single celestial body: Earth. The current paradigm, in which human civilization is confined to one planet, exposes humanity to existential threats that are unpredictable and uncontrollable on a planetary scale. These threats include naturally occurring catastrophic events—such as asteroid impacts, volcanic activity, or solar fluctuations—as well as man-made global conflicts. Geological and astronomical records indicate a non-zero probability of extinction-level events occurring over periods measurable in millions of years. Reliance on a single planetary home constitutes a single point of failure and carries existential risk with a probability of one that must be solved. By moving beyond the only home we have ever known, we ensure species-level redundancy and that the light of consciousness will not be tied to a single planet subject to the inevitable hazards of a harsh and vast universe. We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs. We want to give them a reason to look ahead with excitement, with the prospect that we are entering an age of abundance with an endlessly prosperous and exciting future.