You would have to be nuts to short when there's an exchange printing billions of dollars of unbacked tokens they can use to drive up the price at will. If you want to short cryptocurrency, short tethers.
Sorry, but what? What exchange is printing billions of $ of unbacked Bitcoins?
Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
71–80 of 98 posts
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#72You would have to be nuts to short when there's an exchange printing billions of dollars of unbacked tokens they can use to drive up the price at will. If you want to short cryptocurrency, short tethers.
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
People get upset when you print USD, so Bitfinex instead creates USDT out of thin air and then uses it to buy BTC on its exchange. This would be OK if the Tether was actually backed by USD reserves dollar for dollar, but there is zero evidence that this is the case.
I understand that, but my question is why would anyone buy USDTs in such quantities? The total is now close to a billion dollars, as far as I understand.
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the market cap is over a billion! I wish I could print a billion in monopoly money and exchange it 1:1 for real dollars... https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/
That is not how market caps work. No one can exchange all the Tethers for the market cap in USD.
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the market cap is over a billion! I wish I could print a billion in monopoly money and exchange it 1:1 for real dollars... https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/
That is not how market caps work. No one can exchange all the Tethers for the market cap in USD.
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one is buying those tethers. Bitfinex is printing them and using them on their own exchange's margin trading market. They use it to wash trade the price up or down as desired. There is some evidence they have been wash trading down to trigger stop loss sell orders and buying the cheap coins. Then they wash trade up and sell.
That answer doesn't make any sense. Bitfinex is buying bitcoins from itself? Could you please explain in more detail?
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#77Could someone with some forex knowledge explain how cash-settled futures do and don't affect spot markets?
0. Read the replies to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15895477
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's right. It's Bitfinex and it's been going on for a while now. A ton of people have called them out and they've largely ignored everyone. They've promised an audit and no audit has materialized in the years since they've promised one. There's a fantastic anonymous twitter account that's been calling them out for months now and gathering pretty damning evidence: https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed
Bitfinex prints Tethers, not Bitcoins.
"Yeah, but he's our bastard" [1]! Joking aside, you deposit a coin with Bitfinex and get some pixels saying "one Bitcoin". You then trust those pixels can be exchanged for Bitcoins or dollars down the road. If they're playing fast and loose with one, it's a funny argument to make that they aren't doing the same with the other.
[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Franklin_D._Roosevelt
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#79So what do you guys think of this? I believe all BTC trading spikes are driven by some of the existing owners swapping coins and cash every now and then to keep the trading volume high. It is in their best interest to get the prices bounce back higher whenever it goes down. Once the price is manipulated higher, they can sell and keep the cash when someone who thought BTC is the next "I-Dont-Know-What-It-Is-But-Its-Go…
Re: Bitcoin Climbs as Futures Debut Fails to Incite Attack by Shorts
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
That answer doesn't make any sense. Bitfinex is buying bitcoins from itself? Could you please explain in more detail?
People get upset when you print USD, so Bitfinex instead creates USDT out of thin air and then uses it to buy BTC on its exchange. This would be OK if the Tether was actually backed by USD reserves dollar for dollar, but there is zero evidence that this is the case.