Live data from Hacker News

Shorting Bitcoin

tbray.org

221–230 of 334 posts

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#221

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…

On "why now?", he stated that he thinks the pool of new greater fools is running empty:

> My best guess is that pretty soon the supply of greater fools runs out.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#222
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some broker do this, when customers don't even know about it and also get no lending mony.

Customers who have not read the terms and conditions of a service they are using to store a significant part of their net worth you mean? Every broker I have ever seen very clearly lists in the T&C that they do this.

It was even a discussion here on HN because of an broker frome Sweden ord Norway (I don't remember). So no, it is not allways clear. And no, you may don't own the stock.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#223
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…

You have obviously never tried to move money on the public blockchain. Bitcoin is actually slower and more expensive than it used to be. Need to send a wire? Locally (within the same currency) I can send 24/7 with an average time to hit the other persons bank account of around 5 seconds - cost is $0. No blockchain involved just old fashioned brick and mortar banks. Perhaps you need to change banks.

I live in Germany, and even local transfers (between different banks) are not guaranteed to come fast - sometimes it's quick, sometimes it's next working day. So what's true for you is not true everywhere even in the Western world.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#224
post #212

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…

Well he may not be saying his reasons timing wise. But if you look at the long term bitcoin graph it looks like it had a peak in may around $62k and could fall to something like $15k based on past peaks https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/

Also if you look at trading volume, here on coinbase but it's the same for other exchanges, it also seems to have had a peak in may and be going down which also in the past has lead to falls in btc https://nomics.com/exchanges/gdax-coinbase-exchange

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#225
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have obviously never tried to move money on the public blockchain. Bitcoin is actually slower and more expensive than it used to be. Need to send a wire? Locally (within the same currency) I can send 24/7 with an average time to hit the other persons bank account of around 5 seconds - cost is $0. No blockchain involved just old fashioned brick and mortar banks. Perhaps you need to change banks.

I live in Germany, and even local transfers (between different banks) are not guaranteed to come fast - sometimes it's quick, sometimes it's next working day. So what's true for you is not true everywhere even in the Western world.

Yes, certainly some countries need to modernize their banking infrastructure.

But you can do that without a blockchain for a tiny fraction of the energy cost, transaction time, and transaction fee (if there's a fee at all).

Example: twint.ch Instant transfer, no fees, ubiquous (you can pay you train ticket/parking/groceries etc... with it as well as transfer money to anyone). No blockchain.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#226
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have obviously never tried to move money on the public blockchain. Bitcoin is actually slower and more expensive than it used to be. Need to send a wire? Locally (within the same currency) I can send 24/7 with an average time to hit the other persons bank account of around 5 seconds - cost is $0. No blockchain involved just old fashioned brick and mortar banks. Perhaps you need to change banks.

I live in Germany, and even local transfers (between different banks) are not guaranteed to come fast - sometimes it's quick, sometimes it's next working day. So what's true for you is not true everywhere even in the Western world.

There are in Instant Money transfers in Germany if the banks in transaction support it.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#227
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…

Same with twint.ch in Switzerland.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#229
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're relying on a nation state to behave in a certain way. This never works out in the long term. The winds of politics change on a whim. That's just history for you. With Bitcoin you instead rely on the intrinsic properties of the protocol. No ifs or buts.

You aren't making a lot of sense here since you are relying on an unelected group of people to behave in a certain way. > This never works out in the long term. The winds of politics change on a whim. That's just history for you.

With a nation state you instead rely on the intrinsic properties of the law. No ifs or buts.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#230
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…

You have obviously never tried to move money on the public blockchain. Bitcoin is actually slower and more expensive than it used to be. Need to send a wire? Locally (within the same currency) I can send 24/7 with an average time to hit the other persons bank account of around 5 seconds - cost is $0. No blockchain involved just old fashioned brick and mortar banks. Perhaps you need to change banks.

Crazy limits though. Here in the US, the limit is so tight one friend with a swanky apt can't even pay rent without wire xfer.
Post reply on HN