HSBC bans customers from buying Bitcoin-backer MicroStrategy shares

Post by rawtxapp » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #37

mullingitover wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has a market cap of 673.80B at the moment. Their BTC holdings are barely a rounding error.

Which is a problem in itself. Tesla with a 2% market share in the US, is valued more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, General Motors, and BMW combined (40% of the domestic market). Toyota makes about $2,500 profit for every car sold. Tesla would need to make $50,000 per unit sold on average, or basically 100% profit on a Model 3, to justify the market cap.

Post by fighterpilot » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #6

>The bank said its policy towards cryptocurrencies had been in place since 2018 and is kept under review. It could not immediately say which countries the ban applied to. My guess is that it's just some middle manager blindly following directives from 2018 that haven't been updated. I can't think of any other reason why they'd ban it when everyone else is moving in the opposite direction.

Post by BelenusMordred » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #15

Someone1234 wrote: post #4

> “HSBC has no appetite for direct exposure to virtual currencies and limited appetite to facilitate products or securities that derive their value from VCs (virtual currencies),” HSBC said in a statement. But you wouldn't be? This is a product literally called "InvestDirect" where private individuals are buying stocks and assuming all the risk. If you don't want to offer margin on virtual currency products, more pow…

Knowing absolutely nothing about this particular situation I’d be willing to bet this decision is a lingering side effect of HSBC’s most recent (and seemingly perpetual) AML issues. I suspect they’re trying to appear squeaky clean and an action like this is quick, easy to implement operationally, and looks good to regulators who are uneasy about cryptocurrency’s reputation for facilitating criminal activity online.

Post by MattGaiser » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #43

gruez wrote: post #6

>The bank said its policy towards cryptocurrencies had been in place since 2018 and is kept under review. It could not immediately say which countries the ban applied to. My guess is that it's just some middle manager blindly following directives from 2018 that haven't been updated. I can't think of any other reason why they'd ban it when everyone else is moving in the opposite direction.

They're one of the most bureaucratic and inefficiently ran banks in existence, an absolute nightmare to deal with on every level. Not sure how they're still around, I wish they had been fined into oblivion after they were caught money laundering for narco traffickers.

Post by RoboTeddy » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #10

Is there a good up-to-date resource for understanding the current premium that MSTR has over its BTC holdings? The article says: "MicroStrategy said last week it owns around 91,579 bitcoins. Its holdings, worth around $5.5 billion according to a Reuters calculation, are equal to around 80% of its $6.8 billion market capitalisation." Naively, this would imply a fairly low premium. But among other things, this doesn't…