Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 368 posts

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#271

Post by moreless »

eternalban wrote: post #99
g09980 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has recovered from dips really well in the past weeks due to major buy pressure. Unfortunately GDAX (and Coinbase), Gemini, and other exchanges all went down at the same time this time around, making it impossible to buy the dip.

> Unfortunately GDAX (and Coinbase), Gemini, and other exchanges all went down at the same time > Conveniently GDAX (and Coinbase), Gemini, and other exchanges all went down at the same time

Not sure why you are being downvoted - very precisely (and probably accurately) conveyed what was happening. What are the chances of all these exchanges having trouble at the same time? I'd really like to see postmortem on this.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#272

Post by tzakrajs »

maxerickson wrote: post #186
xbzbanna wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean that tons of money could be invested in these - let's say a trillion dollars going long on bitcoin via cash settled futures - and the underlying price wouldn't necessarily go up at all? I always thought the play with bitcoin was to wait until the "dumb money" got in via financial institutions. But if the whales are just betting on the real price with cash settled futures, does that mess up my assumptio…

The contracts would still involve real Bitcoin, the exchange would handle the Bitcoin side for the trader.

For CME (and perhaps NASDAQ) they are doing cash settlement instead of physical settlement of the Bitcoin since it would introduce significant overhead. They are going to use a reference rate called their "Bitcoin Reference Rate" which has a collection of exchanges that it uses to determine the spot price.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#273

Post by Frogolocalypse »

cookiecaper wrote: post #258
Frogolocalypse wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it. You don't understand the application of decentralization and consensus in bitcoin, and how its application separates it from all other alts. Bitcoin is the only real crypto-currency, because it is the only one to have achieved actual decentralization, and therefore is a working implementation of the previously thought unsolvable solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem. Doesn't mean other people don't und…

> Bitcoin is the only real crypto-currency, because it is the only one to have achieved actual decentralization This is ridiculous because Bitcoin is arguably much more vulnerable to centralized manipulation than fiat money. You only need to compromise 2-3 of the major mining pools and suddenly a 51% attack isn't so unfathomable, and that's just one potential attack vector. The pools obscure the real source of the mi…

> You only need to compromise 2-3 of the major mining pools and suddenly a 51% attack isn't so unfathomable,

Nodes control consensus in bitcoin, not miners. If miners ever 51% attack, the nodes simply change the pow algorithm. Miners get crushed. That's why they don't dare.

You should probably learn how bitcoin works. It's great.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#274

Post by Frogolocalypse »

corndoge wrote: post #256
Frogolocalypse wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In your opinion, what is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin? I use the 1:10000 rule ( https://xkcd.com/1053/ ) for this argument. It is my opinion that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is far far greater than anyone really comprehends. People generally are too focused on people just buying and selling the asset, but not about the cryptographic proof, and incentive structure that perpetuates the network functioning. So wh…

so your argument is that its value is just that it's cryptographically secure?

No.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#275

Post by Frogolocalypse »

billfeng wrote: post #261
Frogolocalypse wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In your opinion, what is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin? I use the 1:10000 rule ( https://xkcd.com/1053/ ) for this argument. It is my opinion that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is far far greater than anyone really comprehends. People generally are too focused on people just buying and selling the asset, but not about the cryptographic proof, and incentive structure that perpetuates the network functioning. So wh…

Isn't the intrinsic value of Bitcoin the fact that it is decentralized and that no government or other entity has direct control over it? Sure it's cryptographically secure, but what is the difference between that and a regular bank using encryption on their money transfer network? I think the reason it's hard to say whether or not Bitcoin is worthwhile is that there has never been a decentralized currency at this sc…

> Sure it's cryptographically secure, but what is the difference between that and a regular bank using encryption on their money transfer network?

Bitcoin is the network to deliver it too. I say that right there.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#276

Post by geezerjay »

swalsh wrote: post #46
mads wrote: post #35

Man, this is just weird. I just bought 0.05 Bitcoins (you know FOMO and all that) and it just feels so much more empty than back in the days when I mined them myself with my brand new dual Xeon CPU and later on was thinking grand thoughts and building little projects with epaper ink displays to display QR codes on small devices that would work on low bandwidth connections and maybe offline. Lots of problems to be sol…

I've always been a negative detractor of bitcoin. But then I realized the problem was it was marketed wrong. As a currency, it's a nightmare of a creation. But as a store of value, it's actually pretty good. As long as you don't buy in at one of the speculative bubbles (which admittedly is when the majority of people get in), it's been pretty good at more or less maintaining its value. As a non-physical thing, it's a…

> I've always been a negative detractor of bitcoin. But then I realized the problem was it was marketed wrong. As a currency, it's a nightmare of a creation. But as a store of value, it's actually pretty good.

This claim is absurd. Bitcoin is patently bad as a store of value, and that's perhaps bitcoin's worse and and most ill-suited applications. Even ignoring the speculative pressures and value manioulation being conducted, just look at how much bitcoin's market value has been fluctuating. Even yesterday it suffered a 10% drop for no reason at all. Who in their right mind believes it's a good idea to store value in a highly volatile service subjected to such speculative pressures?

Nowadays bitcoin sounds a whole lot like a pump-and-dump scheme, where shills come out of the woodwork praising bitcoin's magic and supernatural properties to fool unsuspecting fools to keep pumping money into the fraud.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#277

Post by kgwgk »

xbzbanna wrote: post #179
koolba wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do futures markets typically stabilize the price of a commodity? Kind of. It doesn't necessarily stabilize the prices of the commodity so much as allow the transferring of the risk associated with price movements. > Who loses out if a futures contract can't be fulfilled (for example due to lack of liquidity in the underlying market)? The exchange acting as the clearing house is on the other side of each contract so…

Does this mean that tons of money could be invested in these - let's say a trillion dollars going long on bitcoin via cash settled futures - and the underlying price wouldn't necessarily go up at all? I always thought the play with bitcoin was to wait until the "dumb money" got in via financial institutions. But if the whales are just betting on the real price with cash settled futures, does that mess up my assumptio…

Let’s say the price of bitcoin is $10000. You want to go long using futures, so you start buying contracts. A few people will want to sell futures at $10000, but not for a trillion dollars. If you want to buy more futures, you will have to pay more. If you offer $11000 there will be more people willing to take the other side of the bet. And if the price of the underlying is still $10000 arbitrage is possible. I could buy one bitcoin for $10000 and sell you the future for $11000, pocketing $1000 no matter what the future price of bitcoin may be. That creates demand for bitcoin if there is huge demand for futures, pushing prices up.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#278

Post by nadam »

mads wrote: post #35

Man, this is just weird. I just bought 0.05 Bitcoins (you know FOMO and all that) and it just feels so much more empty than back in the days when I mined them myself with my brand new dual Xeon CPU and later on was thinking grand thoughts and building little projects with epaper ink displays to display QR codes on small devices that would work on low bandwidth connections and maybe offline. Lots of problems to be sol…

You should not think of bitcoin as a payment network, and do not expect its tech innovate rapidly. It is digital gold. Its most important property is to be secure and battle tested. I think bitcoin will be even bigger than it is now. If you zoom out into hundreds of years timeline, it has a historical significance: to store value in an extremely secure and relatively convenient way without trusting a third party. That is big. Probably will be bigger than 172 billion dollars market cap. It is competing with gold, which is something like $7 trillion. If you are interested in the future of payment, than you should invest into sometinhg like Dash instead, which is specifically designed and marketed for payment. Its price is rising rapidly, but it has not blown up as much as bitcoin yet. I hold an almost equal amount (in dollar value) in Dash as in Bitcoin.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#279

Post by geezerjay »

Frogolocalypse wrote: post #249
pryelluw wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you are clearly very well informed (no sarcasm intended), do you mind helping me with something Ive been struggling with? In your opinion, what is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin?

> In your opinion, what is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin? I use the 1:10000 rule ( https://xkcd.com/1053/ ) for this argument. It is my opinion that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is far far greater than anyone really comprehends. People generally are too focused on people just buying and selling the asset, but not about the cryptographic proof, and incentive structure that perpetuates the network functioning. So wh…

> It is my opinion that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is far far greater than anyone really comprehends

See? It's all speculative bullshit, where people who took a bet on bitcoin increasing price and expect to profit from this price increase are trolling other fools to keep pumping the bubble until they cash out.

Bitcoin is quite clearly a pump-and-dump scheme, and here we see some users cheering fools to keep on pumping the bubble with their cash.

The only intrinsic value that bitcoin has is it's use in money laundering deals, and only in short time scales. That's it. The rest is just speculative fraud.

Re: Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

#280

Post by monort »

wpietri wrote: post #208
sprafa wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one word: gold no reason it stores value outside of the fact that we all agree that it does, and we all accept it for curreny. Bitcoin is at that point. It's turning into digital gold. I agree with the original commenter. Looking at Bitcoin as a currency with terrible UX kept me from investing for the past years. Now it's going past inflection point - it's a store of value that will be acceptable everywhere soon.

You'd do better to spend a minute Googling before saying something so definitive. The use of gold for jewelry and industrial applications outweighs the investment use of it: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274684/global-demand-for... Gold has been valued from time immemorial for its unique aesthetic and practical properties entirely aside from its value as a currency. That's clearly distinct from, say, paper doll…

You are looking at the wrong metric, it seems like they count only transactions, not holdings. Only Fort Knox holds over 4000 of metric tons of gold.
Post reply on HN