Shorting the Crypto market

[Ed48]

It's value now is based on speculation that it will begin to be used for a good portion of the world's financial transaction.

Is that true? I would have thought the appeal for many "investors" is simply that it has a history of exponentially going up. Hold it for long enough and not only can't you lose but you can multiply your money by 10 or even 100.

 

[Sig]

Is that true? I would have thought the appeal for many "investors" is simply that it has a history of exponentially going up. Hold it for long enough and not only can't you lose but you can multiply your money by 10 or even 100.

You're probably right about that. I was, I guess, talking about the more intelligent people doing the investing like @Laissez Faire rather than the fanbois.

 

[Laissez Faire]

Again, in response to me saying that BTC mining will skyrocket energy use and cause an increase in energy prices you replied "Maybe, but that actually already happened and it's not because of BTC mining that we're seeing inflation worldwide." Would you mind expanding a bit on that comment, because I think I missed what you were trying to convey?

I'm in a bit of a hurry, so only a quick answer.

What I meant is that we're already seeing rising prices in the world, i.e., inflation, and people are so far calm when maybe they shouldn't be. In response to your comment:

"You haven't even begun to see the hostility that will result when people start to see their power bills go up and coal plants come back online so that we can have....what is the indispensable thing your average everyday person gets out of crypto again?"

If the government or anyone else wants to use Bitcoin as a scapegoat. Fine.

By the way - there are solutions to the problem of energy expenditure as well. In Norway there's an industrial giant who invested heavily in BTC earlier this year and they plan on mining BTC using green surplus energy. For example wind power.

I feel that your view of BTC is only taking into consideration the supply side of what is of course a supply and demand curve that determines price. BTC is only valuable to the extent it performs a function. It's value now is based on speculation that it will begin to be used for a good portion of the world's financial transaction. If all it ever ends up being used for in transactions is ransomware, money laundering, and drug buys plus the current user base using it where they can, it's worth a tiny fraction of what it is now. You can't just assume the demand side stays constant or growing when it's almost entirely based on speculation right now.

Anything with lasting value will have to move to a much wider transaction base or else the price will drop to reflect it's actual utility. And if you move to a much wider transaction base, your energy use skyrockets. The energy use is the achilles heel of BTC. If BTC use grows to the point it justifies its value, energy use becomes prohibitive. If it doesn't grow to the point of prohibitive energy use, it's current price makes no sense. You've got to address this energy use issue head on, otherwise you're ignoring an issue that's easily as big as the issue of the assets securing the so called "stablecoins".

My current understanding is that the utility of Bitcoin is that of a store of value, i.e., digital gold and as a benchmark which other cryptocurrencies are measured against. Much like the USD is in the world of fiat currencies.

For actual utility, BTC itself seems to be inferior to other current and future coins/blockchains.

What BTC lacks in utility it makes up for in security as it's said to be virtually un-hackable.

I guarantee if you or I go anywhere in America outside of a couple tech centers and asked 100 people if they've actually bought or sold something using BTC you wouldn't get more than a handful who actually have. I've lived in Silicon Valley, I've gotten caught up in the bubble and began to thought that everyone must be as familiar with and using the tech I see everyone around me using. But that's not the real world and doesn't reflect the real world. In Topeka KS and Lafayette, LA, and Tucson, AZ and thousands of similar cities large and small no-one is using BTC for transactions. Even most of the fanbois are just speculating, actual transactions are limited to the true evangelists and criminals. You and I have done crypto transactions, but we're in a distinct minority and need to remember that.

See above. At this point in time I don't think many people are using BTC for actual purchases (buying) unless they are early adopters with a lot of coins. However, I do see plenty of people even here in Norway who will accept BTC as payment.

 

[Laissez Faire]

You're probably right about that. I was, I guess, talking about the more intelligent people doing the investing like @Laissez Faire rather than the fanbois.

Easy now. I'm just a salty no-coiner who was extremely critical towards Bitcoin and so much so that I missed the boat when me and my friends started talking about it around 5 years ago.

Only after learning a bit more about it and seeing that it's actually being taken seriously and have loads of institutional interest (not just teenagers and what you call fanboys) I'm taking it seriously too.

 

[Sig]

Easy now. I'm just a salty no-coiner who was extremely critical towards Bitcoin and so much so that I missed the boat when me and my friends started talking about it around 5 years ago.

Only after learning a bit more about it and seeing that it's actually being taken seriously and have loads of institutional interest (not just teenagers and what you call fanboys) I'm taking it seriously too.

To be honest it's a missed opportunity for me as well. I studied the idea of setting up a transaction platform in the Mt. Gox days pretty seriously, my existing business already did something similar. I determined that I couldn't build a platform that was secure enough for me to feel confident in it. Turns out I was almost certainly right about my capabilities but wrong about how little that apparently matters in the crypto world.

 

[Swiss_cheese]

Looks like the bears got a hold of it again. Those who threw down shorts yesterday will be happy! In response to the original post, my favorite way to short the crypto markets is via leveraged CFD. I find it the easiest and most profitable for short term crypto trades! Anyone else using them?

 

[Sig]

Looks like the bears got a hold of it again. Those who threw down shorts yesterday will be happy! In response to the original post, my favorite way to short the crypto markets is via leveraged CFD. I find it the easiest and most profitable for short term crypto trades! Anyone else using them?

Unfortunately they aren't available to us in the U.S. Out of curiosity, which ones are you using?

 

[LuckyMac]

Its been a really interesting time for sure the last few months. I have actually found a nice edge shorting it with my broker and other cryptos. I have good leverage so i don't need much in an account. It's really good because when BTC drops most alts do the same and it's them that i trade. Like it has 30plus cryptos that i can short. It's been really good to do alongside my currency trading. This way i've found that i can take advantage no matter what crypto is doing and will continue to do it until there's clear signs this bear market is over whenever that will be lol

 

[Swiss_cheese]

Let's see if that little pump was just weekend volatility. Will be very interesting to see what BTC does this week!