HN Gopher Feed (2017-11-29) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Nasdaq Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures
167 points by knwang
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/nasdaq-is-sai...aq-is-said-to-plan-bitcoin-futures-joining-biggest-rivals___________________________________________________________________
LeoJiWoo - 1 hours ago
https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/935900326007328768Well
John McAfee thinks bitcoin will hit 1 million by 2020.
lern_too_spel - 11 minutes ago
Pump and dumpers gonna pump and dump.
https://medium.com/@DEFCON_2015/why-mgt-was-delisted-from-ny...
[deleted]
chinathrow - 4 hours ago
I don't know why you should be able to speculate on a speculation
product with no real underlying other than a power conversion
function.
[deleted]
ThrustVectoring - 2 hours ago
There's a real case for the market. Bitcoin miners can short the
futures contract and turn "use dollars to buy electricity and
mining gear for bitcoins later with ??? prices" into "dollars now
for bitcoins later at who-cares prices that nets out the short
bitcoin position that gave us dollars now".
gabesullice - 3 hours ago
Serious question: how do you feel about currency futures?If you
feel differently about them than you do Bitcoin futures? Why?
bluGill - 3 hours ago
currency is a real thing that is mostly used for real
transaction. Most people working in currency futures are
working to offset risk - that is I shipped a widget when it is
delivered the buyer will pay a set price in their currency
which I have to convert back to mine. Bitcoin is used for
transactions, but most of the futures are based on speculation
on future value and not something fundamental.
ryanobjc - 3 hours ago
Maximum snark: and that's why you aren't on the NASDAQ
board?Besides which, there's nothing underlying the US dollar
either. Sure you can pay taxes, but that's about it. The rest of
the economy is a shared belief, an illusion if you will.Shocking
alert: your existence is due to the permission of others.
[deleted]
api - 4 hours ago
An adult is allowed to go to a casino and buy lotto tickets too.
[deleted]
jonknee - 3 hours ago
Considering you can speculate on market volatility, Bitcoin
doesn't seem way out of bounds.
mads - 2 hours ago
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 solved back then, but Bitcoin is just the same now.
Nothing was solved. No progress and scams everywhere and people
being all religious about Bitcoin. Every man for themselves and to
the moon... These days I am even getting scam calls from something
called the Bitcoin Academy with people cheering in the background,
when it reaches the all time high. No kidding...I have no idea what
to do with my 0.05 BTC. Just let them sit there, I guess as a
curiosity of old days. I don't really feel that I fit into the moon
community and I don't really feel I want to build anything around
this tech just because it is not about tech anymore.Had lots of
Bitcoin sift through my hands. Anyone remember the Bitcoin faucets?
Those were the times.Sincerely, One of the first 1000 users of
MtGox (proof in the leaked MtGox database :P)
ohhhlol - 44 minutes ago
> Bitcoin is just the same now. Nothing was solved. No
progressNot true, see Segwit recently, soon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network
schmichael - 17 minutes ago
Segwit is used in a small fraction of transactions[0] and
SegWit2x was cancelled. While the price has skyrocketed the
actual transaction rate has barely moved[1].[0]
http://segwit.party/charts/[1] https://blockchain.info/charts
/transactions-per-second?times...
megaman22 - 2 hours ago
Shit, somebody gave me 0.05 BTC a few years ago to go to a talk
about what it was all about. Hopefully I still have that paper
wallet, it must be worth close to $500
hackermailman - 1 hours ago
I went through all my old blockchain.info temporary wallets
from 2014 in gmail the other day to collect the spare change I
left in them at the time that is now worth $2k. Took 9hrs to
confirm moving them, which is ridiculous. Guess it's time to
switch to Monero or Zcash for use as a currency.
mads - 2 hours ago
Sounds about right. I paid 500 euros for my 0.05BTC piece of
history (there were some fees and all that of course).Maybe I
just bought a piece of something like the Berlin wall and when
everything goes to shit and this whole train wreck evolves into
something more sane later on in 100 years or whatever, my grand
children can sell my 0.05BTC on Sothebys or something :D ..
ashark - 2 hours ago
I got .20-someodd (.28, maybe? Maybe have even been in the .3
range.) years ago from spigots and a very brief experiment with
mining, then thoughtlessly formatted right over the damn hard
drive with the wallet on it and went "oh well, not like it's
worth anything".Don't suppose there are any low-level wallet-
finder tools out there in case it hasn't been overwritten? It's
finally worth a couple days to give that a shot on all my old
hard drives (I forgot which one it was long ago, which is part
of why it hasn't been worth it so far).
mads - 1 hours ago
After I upgraded, I gave my Xeon Workstation to my Mother and
actually kept the miner running when I gave it to her. She
complained it was a bit slow, when she used Photoshop, so I
turned the miner off and she was happy. There must have been
something like 300 or 400 coins in that wallet.I should ask
her if she still has it next time I see her, but I am pretty
sure she threw it in the garbage.
ISL - 50 minutes ago
If it exists, you should ask her today. 300 coins is ~$3M.
makomk - 1 hours ago
Probably. I actually wrote one about half a decade ago,
though I'm not sure how well it works with recent or really
old versions of the software:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25091.0
varbo - 2 hours ago
I'm trying to send $700 in bitcoin to purchase something. It's
going to cost me $65 to buy the coins and several hours of
time.Of course, I am banned from Coinbase for an innocous bank
mistake. There's literally no other options to buy coins at 1-2%
in the US.
sushid - 1 hours ago
Gemini and Kraken are just two I can list from the top of my
head.
goldenkey - 1 hours ago
Im also banned from coinbase for asking them to hurry my
verification because I needed to buy vitamins. They are a
pretty miserable company. How can they claim to sell something
"useful" then ban you if you mention using it? They basically
are admitting to selling a security if that is the
case..wondering if we could take all the nonsensically banned
users and do a class action lawsuit against them. It would be
one thing if I said drugs but I didnt. They banned me for
fucking vitamins.
ceejayoz - 1 hours ago
> Im also banned from coinbase for asking them to hurry my
verification because I needed to buy vitamins.You don't see
how that might be a red flag? What vitamins could possibly be
so important that you couldn't wait a little while, and would
be unavailable from another source?Plus, the rudeness of "I'm
more important than everyone else in the queue, hurry up"
can't have helped.
stale2002 - 1 hours ago
He might be rude, but honestly a company should be expected
to deal with rude customers.It is their job to do deal with
slightly rude customers, and I don't think they should be
banning anybody for something so small as "being asked to
go faster".
ceejayoz - 1 hours ago
The rudeness can't have helped, but I'd imagine the "I
desperately need my 'vitamins' that can only be bought
with Bitcoin" bit is what got the account flagged.
mirimir - 15 minutes ago
Create an Electrum wallet. Find a friend who has Bitcoin. Meet
for lunch/dinner. They transfer ~70 mBTC to you, with a 1-2
mBTC fee. After 2-3 confirmations, you give them $710-$720
cash. Done.
cortesoft - moments ago
With a process so simple, why would anyone ever use cash?!
PhrosTT - 1 hours ago
For the record Coinbase is adding 100k users a day. So people
need to dial down the expectations...
zeep - 30 minutes ago
I would be surprised if Coinbase didn't get sued because of
their bad service... locking people's money when the market
is going crazy.
alextheparrot - 58 minutes ago
The number mentioned for the record is wrong: Coinbase has
added 100k users in a day, it is not adding 100k users per
day [0]. That?s not evening considering the number of users
who may be fraudulent, they are hiring [1].[0] https://docs.g
oogle.com/spreadsheets/d/1NgvD2kFT69mSXuJPzPDu...[1]
https://www.coinbase.com/careers/923993
cdiddy2 - 2 hours ago
gemini?
sidko - 23 minutes ago
Here's a list [1] of 400 exchanges you can buy Bitcoin from, 34
of trade BTC/USD. This doesn't include some sites that charge a
premium and allow you to buy with debit cards. There are also
Bitcoin ATMs, over 1000 of them in the United States [2].[1]
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets [2]
https://coinatmradar.com/
wmf - 2 hours ago
Isn't Gemini 0.25%?
jdironman - 1 hours ago
I just tried registering with them and the reg page is down
for maintenance.
chmpgne - 1 hours ago
Bitcoin itself is being harmed by the core developers who
refuse to do anything to address the insane fees: bitcoin needs
more bandwidth and throughput in its blocks, classic supply and
demand.Bitcoin cash or something like etherium are worth a look
at. Bitcoin cash, as the name implies, holds the value that
bitcoin should be able to be used as electronic cash.
swalsh - 2 hours ago
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 good place to go when
you're not sure about where to put your money. That used to be
the role of the dollar, but this is a good alternative that has
cheaper forex fees.I think the long-term value of bitcoin will
not be buying groceries, but storing money while you wait for
your the storm your grocery stores currency is in to subside.
Probably not relevant to Americans right now, but I'm sure some
people in Latin America can see the value.
knownothing - 1 hours ago
> As long as you don't buy in at one of the speculative
bubblesI'm not so sure about that. You could have bought BTC
anytime before the past week or so and it would have
appreciated significantly, regardless of whether you bought it
in a peak or trough. It's just a question of magnitude. E.g. if
you bought 1 BTC at the lowest or highest price in 2015 you
would still have outrageous returns on it today.This is not to
say it will continue being the case going forward but it's
crazy to look back at.
krrrh - 4 minutes ago
Let?s see how everyone feels after the next correction. The
headlines today seem to change every time I load google news.
Up 10%, down 20%. There?s no way to know where it will go
from here.
makk - 1 minutes ago
Something that consumes an unbounded amount of electricity is
hardly a "non-physical thing."
ceejayoz - 2 hours ago
> But as a store of value, it's actually pretty good.It's got a
pretty short, volatile history to be deciding that.
mirimir - 38 minutes ago
Over the past ~7 years, the price has increased by ~10^5.
There have been some bubbles, for sure. But all that has
paled over the past year. The price could crash, certainly.
Still, if futures become available, it could spike a lot
higher before it does.
wpietri - 19 minutes ago
And this is exactly what makes it a terrible store of
value. As Wikipedia says, "The point of any store of value
is risk management due to a stable demand for the
underlying asset." Stable demand is definitely not a
characteristic of Bitcoin.
zzzzzzzza - 1 hours ago
also much more difficult for average person or even gigantic
corporation to secure than a physical good e.g. gold. And
coins change over time with forks n crap, gold just stays
gold.
nicky0 - 10 minutes ago
It's very easy to secure. Just generate a private key
offline and never tell it to anyone.
jchanimal - 1 hours ago
Shameless plug for my project from back in the everything is
possible days. https://www.wired.com/2014/07/document-coinPlease
can we move beyond commodity currency?
Havoc - 53 minutes ago
Yeah I think I purchased a month of VPN with like half a bitcoin.
Oops.Hindsight 20/20 I guess
andrewwharton - 37 minutes ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again. We've been cruising
past orders of magnitude ($0.10 > $1 > $10 > $100 > $1000 >
$10000) and at any one of those jumps it seemed like the top of
a bubble and just as likely to go in the opposite direction
with the same velocity.Don't kick yourself for spending when
you did, because as I'm sure you're aware, it's just as likely
that you could be now saying "Thank goodness I used those
Bitcoins when they still worth something".I bought a bunch at
~$1, then they jumped to $10 and it started to be fun, because
I had a bunch more value to play with, then they jumped to
$100, I thought screw this. This is not why I bought them and
if they keep up this volatility, then they're not going to be
useful for what I want to use them for (ie. buying/selling
online).I don't regret selling them when I did, and I don't
think you should either.
copperx - 16 minutes ago
"I don't regret being a millionaire, and you shouldn't
either."
colemannugent - 3 hours ago
>... New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc.
is the only one of the four major U.S. exchange operators without
public plans to offer bitcoin derivatives.That's pretty big. A
couple years ago people were very skeptical that the big players
would ever start dabbling in Bitcoin.
wpietri - 11 minutes ago
In some sense, they're still not. Derivatives don't require much
involvement in the underlying commodity. For example, consider
weather
derivatives:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_derivativeE.g.,
the CME's weather futures and
options:http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/weather/It's not like the
Merc is really involved in weather. They just let people gamble
on the weather.
junkscience2017 - 2 hours ago
inevitable that this will turn into another taxpayer bailout,
somehow
phkahler - 1 hours ago
This makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Using tax dollars
to bail out the big guys who bought derivatives based on a
virtual currency would be such a cliche.
chollida1 - 3 hours ago
My guess is that this is probably pretty meaningless.There are a
few things going against them.- The CBOE and CME are both much
larger futures exchanges and are going to be offering futures
first- since you can't net out futures contracts from different
exchanges this means they tend to become winner take all> One way
Nasdaq seeks to differentiate itself seems to be in the amount of
data it uses for pricing the digital currency contracts. VanEck
Associates Corp., which recently withdrew plans for a bitcoin
exchange-traded fund, will supply the data used to price the
contracts, pulling figures from more than 50 sources, according to
the person.This might be interesting as one of the things that
everyone is worried about is price manipulation.If you haven't
thought about how futures work with respect to margin and marking
at the end of the trading day you need to know that you can be
required to deposit more money into your margin account if the
futures trade moves against you on any given day.This means the
marking price is very important and lost of institutional money is
worried that the exchanges are easy to manipulate.see:
http://openmarkets.cmegroup.com/3785/understanding-margin-ch...>
Nasdaq?s product will reinvest proceeds from the spin-off back into
the original bitcoin in a way meant to make the process more
seamless for traders, the person said.This is awesome,, right now
the CBOE and CME both have punted on the question of forks saying,
they'll have a best efforts to figure it out.
Kiro - 3 hours ago
One difference is that NASDAQ is a name everyone in the world
knows while CME is fairly anonymous. Yes, I know they are bigger
but I can assure you that if you ask random people in my country
most would know NASDAQ while very few would know CME. Seeing
NASDAQ is adding it will add to the hype.
hendzen - 2 hours ago
"CME is fairly anonymous".What planet do you live on?
igorgue - 2 hours ago
>> "Yes, I know they are bigger but I can assure you that if
you ask random people in my country most would know NASDAQ
while very few would know CME"Just go out to a target and ask
5 people... Unless you live on mars already.
ashark - 1 hours ago
I imagine I'd get three "CME? Dunno WTF that is", "How
about Chicago Mercantile Exchange?", "Oh yeah, I recognize
that from the boring parts of morning news updates on the
radio. They do something with soy beans, right?" and two
"yeah, still dunno. Is it a farmer's market?"Midwestern US
city (not Chicago).
Kiro - 1 hours ago
Outside of the US I don't think many would know what
Chicago Mercantile Exchange is though while most would
probably know Nasdaq.
runeks - 2 hours ago
CME is the largest options and futures contracts exchange in
the world...> Seeing NASDAQ is adding it will add to the
hype.Alright, I see your point. You?re considering how this
announcement will affect the bitcoin price.
whatok - 2 hours ago
Random people in your country are not the target audience for
this.
jacobush - 1 hours ago
... target of bitcoin hype tho?
fragsworth - 3 hours ago
Hopefully it's not cash settled like the CME. That is the worst
idea ever, and will probably cause a lot of people to get screwed
over by market manipulation. Especially since the CME is basing the
cash settlement price on a single exchange: GDAX. Anyone can go to
GDAX and crash or spike the price for one minute at 4:00pm any day
and trigger a bunch of margin calls on the CME.Especially
considering how easy it is to make a bitcoin transaction (compared
to things like wheat, or oil...) it really should be "bitcoin
settled".
brndnmtthws - 3 hours ago
Agreed. It's kind of a farce, and it seems like they're merely
hijacking the Bitcoin name without actually dealing in Bitcoin.
wmf - 2 hours ago
Apparently there have been cash-settled futures on a whole
bunch of commodities for years now, so this sounds like another
case of "I just discovered how finance works and I don't like
it".
brndnmtthws - 2 hours ago
Bitcoin differs from commodities like gold in that it's
something which can be trivially transferred electronically.
It doesn't make much sense to 'buy' cash instruments when you
can just get the real thing.
wyldfire - 2 hours ago
Holding any commodity comes with a huge amount of risk
(what do I do with these oil barrels? ... livestock? ...
crops?). Settling futures would involve moving these
things from place to place.But whither bitcoin, you say?
Moving those is easy! Yes, but holding them is hard. Who
wants Your Favorite Mutual Fund to hold bitcoins? Not
them, that's for sure. There's much more risk there than
necessary.
nicky0 - 3 minutes ago
In what way is holding Bitcoin hard? That's the point of
it. It's a store of value that's easy to hold directly.
wmf - 2 hours ago
Between poor usability, variable fees, blockchain
congestion, and security I wouldn't say transferring
Bitcoin is trivial.There may also be a regulatory angle
here. ETFs that are backed by Bitcoin have been repeatedly
smacked down by the SEC, but futures that merely bet on the
price while not touching actual Bitcoin seem to be OK. I
can imagine that this probably infuriates true believers.
wmf - 3 hours ago
It's not just GDAX: http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/cf-bitcoin-
reference-rate.ht...
fragsworth - 3 hours ago
Oh, I didn't realize. At some point I read it was just
GDAX.Even still, cash settlement is terrible.
vasilipupkin - 2 hours ago
I disagree completely. Cash settled futures let people bet on
bitcoin without ever touching bitcoin itself. For example,
suppose I am a huge bitcoin hater and want to bet that bitcoin
will go down 100% in the next 3 months. Why force me to worry
about wallets, etc.? I just want to have a way to express my
conviction without messing with all that stuff.
misja111 - 3 hours ago
>> it really should be "bitcoin settled".Sorry but you can't have
futures on bitcoins that are settled in bitcoins.
reverend_gonzo - 3 hours ago
Why not? CME has futures that are settled with physical
delivery.It definitely makes it a pain for post-settlement
management, and would likely prevent a lot of people from
trading those futures, but why exactly is it not possible?
virtuexru - 3 hours ago
Ah yes Bitcoin; the completely useless electricity waster is
finally hitting Wall St. I wonder how the futures will affect price
& how much of it will be settled in actual BTC vs USD.AM I DOING
THIS RIGHT HACKER NEWS? LUL
deadmetheny - 2 hours ago
>how much of it will be settled in actual BTC vs USDExactly none
of it, considering that Bitcoin as a currency is fairly useless
unless you're buying drugs or you're a botnet operator.
macromage - 2 hours ago
Fairly useless unless you're part of a roughly $1-trillion
dollar[1] global industry, you mean?[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade - Take the
2003 figure as a % of world GDP, apply to today's world GDP.
deadmetheny - 1 hours ago
Ah yes, I'm sure all the people trading on Bitcoin futures
are getting paid in Bitcoin and re-investing into the illegal
drug market.
igorgue - 2 hours ago
Or get a Shift Card (partner of Coinbase) and buy some nice
coffee or gas or plane tickets... Everything is useless if
you're a moron ;-).https://www.shiftpayments.com/
deadmetheny - 1 hours ago
The places you use that aren't taking your Internet Fun Bucks
though, it's just converting them into dirty fiat and giving
that to merchants. Also, best hope that the $2 you spent on a
carton of milk isn't worth $4 by the end of the week.
aoeusnth1 - 2 hours ago
It's pretty useless for those, too.
flignats - 30 minutes ago
I don't get it - btc is worse than cash for buying drugs and
botnets. Cash is anonymous, how do people forget that?
semi-extrinsic - 6 minutes ago
For drugs easily available from your local dealer, you're
probably right. But if you wanna buy something fancy, or for
anything to do with botnets if you live in the US/Western
Europe, cash is a no-go since you can't easily move it
internationally.
psyc - 1 hours ago
One person?s useless is another?s breakthrough, critical mass
solution to one of humanity?s oldest and most fundamental
problems: tracking who has/owes what.
[deleted]
londons_explore - 3 hours ago
Can an expert explain for the less informed:* Do futures markets
typically stabilize the price of a commodity?* Who loses out if a
futures contract can't be fulfilled (for example due to lack of
liquidity in the underlying market)?
ISL - 48 minutes ago
The test case for this is in onion markets. Futures trading in
onions was banned.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act
koolba - 2 hours ago
> 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 they'd be left
holding the empty bag. Exchanges deal with this by settling
futures daily (so net cash movement based on current price) and
by setting margin requirements on the members buying or selling
contracts. The margin requirements vary based on the volatility
of the future and for something like Bitcoin I wouldn't be
surprised if was 100%.What's particularly cool / safe (and
interesting if you're a finance nut) about futures vs. actual
trading of Bitcoins is that there is zero crypto involved.
Everything is cash settled in dollars.
dsacco - 1 hours ago
> What's particularly cool / safe (and interesting if you're a
finance nut) about futures vs. actual trading of Bitcoins is
that there is zero crypto involved. Everything is cash settled
in dollars.I certainly find this interesting, but I don't think
it's a good vote of confidence for Bitcoin just yet, even if
it's structurally safer for the exchange. For the most part
futures are not cash-settled, or only cash-settled when it is
very inconvenient for the buyer or exchange to settle them
physically. If you buy futures, you are usually trying to gain
speculative exposure to something that is otherwise very
difficult to hold (e.g. oil futures vs oil barrels).If there is
no structural obstacle to settling futures physically, that
implies there is another reason the market or the exchange
doesn't particularly want to. This can mean various things; in
the case of Bitcoin futures specifically, I interpret this to
mean that the exchange would rather not handle Bitcoin
directly, because historically holding a large amount of
Bitcoin at once invites hackers to try and steal them.That's
pretty savvy and does seem good for overall safety, but from
the perspective of financial stability, I think it's bad for
Bitcoin's overall market confidence long term. My concern is
that since Bitcoin is convenient to purchase and trade directly
through existing exchanges, people who are long on Bitcoin
should just buy Bitcoin directly, instead of Bitcoin futures.
babaganoosh89 - 1 hours ago
What's even cooler about futures, is they are taxed at 60%/40%
long term / short term capital gains. Great for anyone who
holds less than a year.
elmar - 2 hours ago
> volatility of the future and for something like Bitcoin I
wouldn't be surprised if was 100%100% is really farfetched more
like 30%
whatok - 2 hours ago
historical volatility on pretty much any time window is well
north of 30%
rictic - 2 hours ago
Yeah. The price has varied by 20% in the past 24 hours.
rndmwlk - 2 hours ago
If it's anything less than 90% I would be surprised. It will
not be in the ballpark of 30%.
wyldfire - 2 hours ago
At least in bitcoin's case -- if its market cap increases
substantially as a result of being listed, then that would
stabilize its exchange rate.
swalsh - 2 hours ago
I think it kind of does, in a way. Let's say I go long on
bitcoin, but purchase futures that are short on it. If bitcoin
plummets, I may lose on the bitcoin position, but the futures I
purchased will go up, limiting my losses.Southwest did something
similar with oil a few years ago. Fuel is one of the biggest
costs to an airline, so when the price of oil spiked a few years
ago, many airlines had to raise ticket prices + add fees to make
up for the loss. Southwest, on the other hand, had oil futures
betting on the cost of oil going up. When the spike happened,
their costs went up too, but they could make up for it with the
futures.
otakucode - 1 hours ago
That's called 'hedging' and is literally all hedge funds do.
So long as markets remain 'sensible' its a brilliant strategy.
Markets, of course, do not remain sensible for long. I'm
presently listening to 'When Genius Failed', a book about the
implosion and utter failure of Long Term Capital Management,
one of the biggest hedge funds who learned just how utterly
batshit irrational the market can actually be.
0xBABAD00C - 1 hours ago
> That's called 'hedging' and is literally all hedge funds
do.Uhhh, no
sjcsjc - 17 minutes ago
Yeah the term hedge fund seems something of a misnomer
nowadays.For anyone interested:The term "hedge fund"
originated from the paired long and short positions that
the first of these funds used to hedge market
risk.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_fund
slg - 2 hours ago
There was a 4 hour stretch this morning in which Bitcoin lost over
20% of its value. In the last 45 minutes it is up 13%. I wonder
what a long straddle would cost on this thing.
g09980 - 1 hours ago
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.
zeep - 14 minutes ago
with Coinbase, the best I could do is buy @ 9400 and sell @
9800 ...lost money because of their bad servers (for some
reason downtime only happens when Bitcoin's value drops a lot)
eternalban - 14 minutes ago
> 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
Klathmon - 3 minutes ago
Why would an exchange shut down? If people are selling, GDAX
and Gemini are still making money on every trade.Their site
stops working, they miss out on all the income of trades that
might have happened during that time.
WJW - 9 minutes ago
Straddles are priced on volatility, so the actual price is not
relevant.