While trading in general is zero sum, if you believe the product you’re trading has intrinsic value, then no one needs to be holding a bag.
If I sell you a car and you get to use the car, you wouldn’t be holding the bag, because you wanted the car. This applies to stocks, and stock derivatives, as well as commodities.
The problem arises when there isn’t an intrinsic value (or the intrinsic value is very small), such as with NFTs or many cryptos in general.
There are cryptos that have some intrinsic value like monero, since they have fungibility and a use case, but most do not.
While trading in general is zero sum, if you believe the product you’re trading has intrinsic value, then no one needs to be holding a bag.
If I sell you a car and you get to use the car, you wouldn’t be holding the bag, because you wanted the car. This applies to stocks, and stock derivatives, as well as commodities.
The problem arises when there isn’t an intrinsic value (or the intrinsic value is very small), such as with NFTs or many cryptos in general.
There are cryptos that have some intrinsic value like monero, since they have fungibility and a use case, but most do not.