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Perpetual futures, explained

bitsaboutmoney.com

11–20 of 83 posts

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#11
Crypto at this point is neither decentralized nor anonymous. It’s a Ponzi scheme wrapped in increasing level of complexity and involving an increasing number of banks, and controlled by a decreasing number of very large players. This crypto octopus is putting tentacles in Fidelity, and major US banks, and pension funds, and 401k accounts, and any other money holder. They are putting debt on banks at leverage levels beyond any reason. So when the music stops playing the octopus can slurp the real money liquidity out of as many US banks and savings institutions as possible, to eventually collapse the savings even of people who have nothing to do with Crypto.

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#12
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true with decentralised exchanges like hyperliquid, no?

Hyperliquid and similar exchanges aren't decentralized. That is their long term goal but they are very far from achieving it. The few actual decentralized exchanges are too slow and expensive.

> HyperCore includes fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books. Every order, cancel, trade, and liquidation happens transparently with one-block finality inherited from HyperBFT. HyperCore currently supports 200k orders / second, with throughput constantly improving as the node software is further optimized.

Key part:

> fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#14
post #2

It's striking how much the crypto world depends on trust in other parties. The whole point of crypto was supposed to be that it was "trustless". But it's not set up that way. All these crypto derivatives are not set up as contracts on a blockchain, with assets locked up until the derivatives settle. They're book entries with some weakly regulated exchange in Outer Nowhere.

This comment makes sweeping generalizations.

This is a common place in any thread about cryptocurrencies on HN unfortunately... I could be convinced of my own message also being a sweeping generalization if anyone can point out a single post where top comments aren't doing exactly this when it comes to this topic, even the technical ones.

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#15

>The basis trade, classically executed, is delta neutral: one isn’t exposed to the underlying itself. You don’t need any belief in Bitcoin’s future adoption story, fundamentals, market sentiment, halvings, none of that. You’re getting paid to provide the gambling environment, including a really important feature: the perp price needs to stay reasonably close to the spot price, close enough to continue attracting peop…

> When you trade CME bitcoin futures, your settlement is guaranteed by the clearing entities of Chicago Mercantile Exchange which are bulge bracket firms of TradFi.

The CME clearinghouse itself is the guarantor. And below it are the clearing firms. The trading firms don't guarantee trades, the clearing firms do.

In fact, for many products, the CME is the counterparty for both sides of a trade.

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#16
post #2

It's striking how much the crypto world depends on trust in other parties. The whole point of crypto was supposed to be that it was "trustless". But it's not set up that way. All these crypto derivatives are not set up as contracts on a blockchain, with assets locked up until the derivatives settle. They're book entries with some weakly regulated exchange in Outer Nowhere.

By now crypto-in-practice has violated so many of its supposed founding principles that it's tired and cliche to point it out. It was supposed to be limited in supply unlike fiat, and yet Tether underpins the whole thing and they print that out of thin air all the time. It was supposed to be decentralized, but in practice a few big exchanges control all the transactions and a few big mining pools control all the mint…

> It was supposed to be limited in supply unlike fiat, and yet Tether underpins the whole thing and they print that out of thin air all the time.

This is a joke right? Tether (USDT) is pegged to the dollar... and there is not really a limit to the USD printing machine, nobody ever claimed a stablecoin would have a limited supply. It's literally the main critique of the fiat system levied by crypto proponents.

The only asset which has made and still hold promises of not increasing its supply over its limit set through its consensus code is Bitcoin. And it is nowhere close to ever change... as a matter of fact if it changed, most people wouldn't call that fork Bitcoin.

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#18
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperliquid and similar exchanges aren't decentralized. That is their long term goal but they are very far from achieving it. The few actual decentralized exchanges are too slow and expensive.

> HyperCore includes fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books. Every order, cancel, trade, and liquidation happens transparently with one-block finality inherited from HyperBFT. HyperCore currently supports 200k orders / second, with throughput constantly improving as the node software is further optimized. Key part: > fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books

Being on a blockchain and being decentralized are two different things. The HyperCore client isn't even open source.

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#19

>The basis trade, classically executed, is delta neutral: one isn’t exposed to the underlying itself. You don’t need any belief in Bitcoin’s future adoption story, fundamentals, market sentiment, halvings, none of that. You’re getting paid to provide the gambling environment, including a really important feature: the perp price needs to stay reasonably close to the spot price, close enough to continue attracting peop…

If the price of Bitcoin increases, you collateral value increases along the losses from the short. This is why it's "delta neutral".

The real risk is to be auto-deleveraged when the other side blows up and no one is here to buy its long. Then the perp exchange closes your short and you have a naked long.

Re: Perpetual futures, explained

#20
post #2

It's striking how much the crypto world depends on trust in other parties. The whole point of crypto was supposed to be that it was "trustless". But it's not set up that way. All these crypto derivatives are not set up as contracts on a blockchain, with assets locked up until the derivatives settle. They're book entries with some weakly regulated exchange in Outer Nowhere.

By now crypto-in-practice has violated so many of its supposed founding principles that it's tired and cliche to point it out. It was supposed to be limited in supply unlike fiat, and yet Tether underpins the whole thing and they print that out of thin air all the time. It was supposed to be decentralized, but in practice a few big exchanges control all the transactions and a few big mining pools control all the mint…

Yes. Cryptocurrencies operate within the larger econo-political system we live in, and as long as cryptocurrencies replace only a part of that system, the rest of the system will continue to operate as it does otherwise. Its quite clear that the way capitalism operates in practice is that most markets end up being oligopolish, and that people with guns are needed to keep the system stable. So not at all surprising.
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