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Shorting Bitcoin

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Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#51

Post by rorykoehler »

breck wrote: post #43

I love this sort of thing. He’s making a bet, explains his reasoning, and does it in the open! That’s great. I disagree that there’s no tech here. IMO public ledgers that never sleep are far superior(thanks to the hard work of many people over the past decade), and their advantage over retail banking will only increase. My online banks keep getting worse, crypto keeps getting better. Think about this: banks are CLOSE…

The amount of time it takes for me to move my own money between my own accounts pisses me off mightily. I can pay to have an "instant" transfer but that is just double dipping by the banks for a service that should be provided in the cost I'm already paying for my accounts. Crypto currently has far greater UX challenges but once these are fixed this is where crypto can win.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#52

Post by [deleted] »

breck wrote: post #43

I love this sort of thing. He’s making a bet, explains his reasoning, and does it in the open! That’s great. I disagree that there’s no tech here. IMO public ledgers that never sleep are far superior(thanks to the hard work of many people over the past decade), and their advantage over retail banking will only increase. My online banks keep getting worse, crypto keeps getting better. Think about this: banks are CLOSE…

[deleted]

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#53

Post by Shosty123 »

breck wrote: post #43

I love this sort of thing. He’s making a bet, explains his reasoning, and does it in the open! That’s great. I disagree that there’s no tech here. IMO public ledgers that never sleep are far superior(thanks to the hard work of many people over the past decade), and their advantage over retail banking will only increase. My online banks keep getting worse, crypto keeps getting better. Think about this: banks are CLOSE…

  My online banks keep getting worse, crypto keeps getting better.
That resonates with me after my bank shut down my ability to transfer money (via eTransfer) because I hit their arbitrary $20,000 limit for the month. I had to wait THREE weeks before I could send another transfer.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#54

Post by jonny_eh »

xvector wrote: post #19

I'm of two minds. Cryptocurrency is a beautiful technology. But the current prices have absolutely world-changing speculation already priced in. I think the price is largely meaningless, and cryptocurrencies are likely to crash hard, but at the same time, I don't really care, because the price is not the beautiful thing about crypto. Crypto achieved its purpose as envisioned by the cypherpunks that created it, the mo…

> Cryptocurrency is a beautiful technology

On the surface, ya, but the proof-of-waste at its centre should be reason enough to consider the technology more harmful than not.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#55

Post by paxys »

I agree with basically every word in the article, but would never ever short Bitcoin. Simply because the market can remain irrational longer than I can remain solvent.

> When will it happen? I dunno. I’ll be astonished if we get through 2021 without an explosion.

Everything he wrote was also true in 2020 or 2019 or 2018 or 2015, and yet there was no explosion. Why does he think Christmas 2021 will be different?

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#56

Post by [deleted] »

__zack wrote: post #35
tempestn wrote: post #23

I've sold Tether for both USD and CAD without any issue or significant delay. What are the difficulties the author is referencing? (Asking genuinely, not arguing.)

The difference is between exchanging tether and redeeming tether. Exchanging tether is easy as long as there’s a counterparty willing to buy your tether in exchange for USD. But in principle you should be able to go to the “tether mint”, give them your tethers, and they redeem them 1:1 to USD. Apparently this is not very straightforward to do. This podcast episode covers the topic well: https://anchor.fm/cas-piancey/…

[deleted]

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#57

Post by caf »

tessierashpool wrote: post #28
SavantIdiot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is Tesla makes cars, good cars, that people can use. Bitcoin makes "investors."

OK, but Tesla makes cars that catch fire while parked, and their "profit" comes from selling carbon credits to GM and Fiat. I agree Tesla is less of a pyramid scheme, but I think it's still a pyramid scheme.

The regulatory credit income is about what they're spending on R&D, so another way to look at it is "Tesla have GM and Fiat funding their R&D".

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#58

Post by vmception »

Someone that was predicted to own 5% (1mm) of all Bitcoins just died in Costa Rica

I doubt they had a survivorship and secession plan for their bitcoins and I doubt Bitcoins become less scarce

Shorting Microstrategy and Coinbase via puts are good ideas though. Microstrategy isnt overleveraged yet but its easy for them to be. Coinbase is just a share dump, thats the entire purpose of direct listings. This has nothing to do with Bitcoin.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#59

Post by lordnacho »

Derivatives guy here. Perfectly fine opinion, but two issues.

Why now? This is a general investing issue. Trading costs money, holding a put costs money, so why will the market do what you think in this time frame?

Why are the puts cheap? This could be substantiated with some numbers, esp implied volatility. Are they cheap vs history? I don't know, but the reasoning should show why you think so. Note I'm not looking for breakevens. That can be worked out from the price, but it doesn't tell you whether that is more or less likely than the market's opinion.

Totally reasonable points otherwise.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#60

Post by arcticbull »

vmception wrote: post #58

Someone that was predicted to own 5% (1mm) of all Bitcoins just died in Costa Rica I doubt they had a survivorship and secession plan for their bitcoins and I doubt Bitcoins become less scarce Shorting Microstrategy and Coinbase via puts are good ideas though. Microstrategy isnt overleveraged yet but its easy for them to be. Coinbase is just a share dump, thats the entire purpose of direct listings. This has nothing…

That is true, unless you believe that the scarcity isn't at all relevant to the price in your anticipated future state. After all, the sacks of garbage in my kitchen are scarce but you don't see people tripping over their shoelaces to pay $30,000 a piece.
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