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Shorting Bitcoin

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Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#211

Post by [deleted] »

rorykoehler wrote: post #51
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.

[deleted]

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#212

Post by Sammi »

lordnacho wrote: post #59

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…

In trading you need a catalyst. A reason for why something will happen in a certain time frame. That's the basic premise for how trading works. If you don't have a catalyst then you are just blindly gambling or throwing your money away.

OP gives a bunch of reasons, but no reason why any of that will play out in his particular time frame. So he's not trading. Time will tell if he is gambling or throwing his money away.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#213

Post by 22c »

Animats wrote: post #138
22c wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The loans have collateral behind them, often real estate. There's still an assumption that the real estate can be liquidated 1:1 for the loan value, though. I think the difference is not so much the collateral, but the insurance.

No, the assumption is that the collateral can be liquidated at (1-x%) of loan value, and that the bank has x% in loan reserve capital to make up the losses.

Yes, you are quite correct. I believe the point still stands, that there is nothing inherently pegging collateral + reserve to it's loan value.

If the risk of default is too high, banks usually won't give out loans without some form of insurance.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#214

Post by meepmorp »

jkepler wrote: post #176
jonny_eh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Energy use promotes human flourishing. Look up fatalities from climate-related catastrophes in the past hundred years---floods, winter storms, hurricanes, heat waves, crop-failure induced famines---and you'll see a steady downward trend corresponding to increased use of machines. All these machines use energy. Humans are also increasingly capable of working to protect endangered species, especially after human well-b…

Just FYI, HN doesn't generally appreciate parody, even when this well executed.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#215

Post by arcticbull »

jkepler wrote: post #171
arcticbull wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Borderless/Multi-Currency it's even cooler, since it grants you local banking details in many different locales, so someone can pay you via ACH, FedWire, SEPA, EFT, etc and have that value reflected in your account almost immediately (depending on the transfer method) and (depending on the transfer method) without charge.

Isn't this convenience at the cost of trusting a third party, I.e. Transferwise, with your money? They can unilaterally hold, delay, or stop you from using your money.

Yes, that is true, however Wise is a heavily regulated entity (in the sense that they are regulated simultaneously by a number of global regulators). Broadly speaking they would have to have a very good reason - a legal one - to preclude you from accessing your money. The flip side is you have a legal pathway to recovering your value in the unlikely situation you describe. Pros and cons.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#216

Post by Sammi »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #13

FTA: "I’ve repeatedly criticized Bitcoin specifically and blockchain in general, on the grounds that I’ve seen no practical real-world applications," and "Bitcoin is not usable as a currency because the transaction costs and latency are both too high. (Yes, I know about the Lightning network.)" "My best guess is that pretty soon the supply of greater fools runs out." -- He's on to something! This is a pretty funny ar…

I've been hearing this sentiment ever since I heard about Bitcoin in 2011. Bitcoin has been through many huge crashes since, but the long term trend just keeps going up and up. So far the only fools are the one's that didn't HODL.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#217

Post by scrollaway »

wraptile wrote: post #203
philjohn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And with companies like Wise (previously trasnferwise) I can convert a USD balance into GBP in seconds, and then withdraw to a UK bank in a few more seconds.

That's not true everywhere. My transferwise from EU to Asia takes a good week to arrive and still costs more than Bitcoin and significantly more than any altcoin or lightning network.

Fixing these issues on a per-country basis is most likely easier than the necessary adoption for crypto to replace these mechanisms altogether.

I get what the GGGP's point is, but the baseline to compare with is the EU IBAN system, not the US banking system.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#218

Post by jschulenklopper »

panarky wrote: post #91
lordnacho wrote: post #59

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…

Since he bought his puts on 6/26, BTC is up 9.5%, MSTR is up 9.9% and COIN is up 13.5%. He's already pretty deep underwater.

Is he underwater? Aren't the put options that he bought previously just not cheaper now?

On options being underwater: "Underwater stock options have an exercise price which is greater than the market price of the underlying stock." Is that his situation?

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#219

Post by ben-gy »

This reminds me of Bill Ackman’s war against Herbalife, which in my opinion, is a perfect example of a pyramid scheme that is too big to fail.

Ref: https://www.investopedia.com/news/billionaire-bill-ackman-du...

Whether the OP is right or wrong, I honestly don’t think the crypto ecosystem is independent enough from critical transactions for it to collapse as described.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#220

Post by anthony_barker »

prionassembly wrote: post #140
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…

Eh. Brazil (the government! same one that botched the response to Covid) instituted an universal mechanism to wire any amount of money instantly for free — there goes your use case, not to mention Venmo, etc. Of note: INSTANTLY. You can pay a random handyman you need in an emergency, or split bar tabs, or pay out-of-pocket expenses with doctors, whatever. I use it in lieu of credit cards for e-commerce too. https://w…

Its only interesting when compared with the US. Japan put in instant payments in 1973. And Nigeria, Philippines and many other developing countriesall have local instant payment systems.

I have been using BRL (a stellar based stable token) to pay a programmer from Europe. Zero fee, Sepa instant to PIX. Allows me to pay him daily as that is what he wanted.

https://www.ntokens.com/blog/brl-anchor-stellar

There are Argentian, Nigerian, South African, USDC, Chilean (https://kbtrading.org)

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