An unregulated leveraged options platform with essentially no assets and what will undoubtedly be super senior debt deals with their prime broker writing naked contracts on something that moves 30% based on one website lagging out for a hour or two?
bitcoins was babby's first forex trading platform. I guess it's time for nerds everywhere to get a crash course in options (emphasis on the word crash.)
Coinbase, a YC company, recently raised 600k[1]. It was crowdfuneded though:
Having completed the FundersClub (YC S12) crowdfunding round, Coinbase raised $268,700, a little over its goal of $250,000, from 61 FundersClub members
The people here talking about shorting bitcoin to moderate the bubble have no idea what they're talking about. Shorting a bubble is about the stupidest thing you can do. Here's how that math works:
1) You open a margin account with $10,000.
2) You borrow 25 BTC from your broker and sell them on the market at $200. You hope that the price crashes to $0 and your net profit will be $5,000.
3) What actually happens is that the price doubles to $400. It would now cost you $10,000 to close your position (buy the 25 BTC back at market prices).
4) Your broker realizes this and decides -- without asking -- that it doesn't like this state of affairs and closes the position for you, wiping out your margin.
I talked about shorting bitcoin to moderate the bubble, and I have some idea what I'm talking about. Don't confuse "shorting will stabilize the price" with "it's a good idea to short bitcoin".
A shorting mechanism makes it possible for people who are not bullish to participate in the price discovery process. Without a way to short, there are only two participants in the price discovery mechanism -- those who previously acquired bitcoin and now think that they're overvalued and those who think they will continue to appreciate and want to buy more. There is no way for someone who bought at $20 and got out at $100 to express an opinion that $200 is an unsustainable bubble.
It's irrelevant whether shorting bitcoin is going to make anyone money, or when shorting will make people money vs. when it will wipe you out on a margin call. I'm only talking about how the ability to short will make the market more efficient.
And? This is the very definition of a margin call. Retail investors ought to RTFM when it comes to financial services products, especially when it comes to forex.
The more likely scenario is getting the timing wrong, e.g. price goes up to, say $300 before falling down to $100. If you don't have enough to cover it when it hits $300 or the balls to stay in until it goes down, you can still end up with a lot of pain. In the end it's the simplest to either go long or stay out, and let those who know how to manage the risk do the shorting work.
On the Bitcoin Software Maturity Scale, where hundreds of thousands of dollars routinely gets entrusted to 17 year olds coding bucket shops in Ruby on Rails and 80% of the global transaction volume is run through a company in Tokyo set up to trade Magic: The Gathering cards, a guy with financial industry and experience and enough money to pay for a single professional security audit is practically IBM.
Long overdue. I've done some research on trying to short Bitcoins and could not come up with anything better than a naked short position or something with tremendous counterparty risk. I'm more interested in Bitcoins as a legitimate means of exchange rather than as an investment, and a service like this would enable me to protect against volatility, the same way similar services in existing ForEx markets protect borrowers and lenders in foreign markets.
This is a big deal. With leverage and shorting, the only people who will have use for BitCoins (as opposed to a long position in a margin account) will be the small set who need the specific type of liquidity that BitCoin offers... and that will prove to be a small set. (People who need regular anonymous liquidity have other means.)
I will also remark that, even when a bubble is underway, shorting is dangerous. If you don't know what margin calls are (and how much it sucks to get hit by one) then stay out.
The real value in bitcoin is that it provides settlement from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world in at most a couple of hours. Very few other options exist for such rapid settlement.
Whatever happens with bitcoin, that pace of commerce exists in the world now.
To me, the interesting thing to be doing at this point is figuring out how to take advantage of that speed with new business models.
If you need further evidence on how dangerous shorting is, even for something that everyone thinks will go down, consider the "Widowmaker" bond trade.
Essentially, most traders agree that the Japanese Government (JG) will have to soon increase the yield of their new bonds (which have historically been very low) because of Japan's huge and growing national debt (200% of GDP) and the slowly increasing risk of defaulting. Once this happens, the value of the current bonds in the market will drop because who wants to buy bonds with a lower yield at the same price? After the Fukushima disaster, investors thought for sure that the JG would increase yield to get more money to repair infrastructure, deal with a weakened economy, etc. Many, many hedge fund managers have shorted Japanese bonds and all of them have lost money. Yet, the idea persists and every day, traders are shorting JG bonds, convinced that it can't stay low forever. No doubt, one day it will pay off, but will you be the lucky one to cash in? Unlikely.
You miss the big picture. Digital currencies will exist as an instrument to hedge against currency fluctuations, commodity manipulation, and to let you deploy liquid money into assets with calculable appreciation/depreciation rates.
It won't take much more than a large industry coalition to settle the price fluctuation around bitcoins, which will follow the basic organic market coalition... i.e. vendors accepting bitcoins.
In the future, we may not be using bitcoins, but you can bet we're going to be using coins made of bits. I don't know if my bitcoins will be worth anything eventually, but they will be an artifact of great change at least.
With the price soaring to new heights, how do you pay for things in bitcoins when a single bitcoin is worth so much? Can you pay in fractions of a bitcoin?
It would indeed stabilize Bitcoin, but I don't see what's so ironic about it. Short-selling and other derivatives substantially stabilize a lot of markets, popular delusion to the contrary notwithstanding.
That's an interesting question and I think it's hard to say.
If by "stabilize", you mean reduce volatility, I would bet no. I would say we could possibly see even more volatility once leverage and shorting enter the picture.
But, if by "stabilize", you mean put some downward pressure on the price, then I would guess maybe or even likely.
Under the traditional rules I would have more confidence in the latter than just maybe, but with bitcoin, it seems like we've long ago tossed the traditional rules.
I just found out that IG Markets have added Bitcoin binaries to their trading platform. You can bet on the Bitcoin price being above / below $100, $150, $200 etc on MtGox at some point in the future.
[+] [-] trotsky|13 years ago|reply
what could go wrong
[+] [-] gfodor|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minimax|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielRibeiro|13 years ago|reply
Having completed the FundersClub (YC S12) crowdfunding round, Coinbase raised $268,700, a little over its goal of $250,000, from 61 FundersClub members
[1] https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2012/09/coinbase-...
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] minimax|13 years ago|reply
1) You open a margin account with $10,000.
2) You borrow 25 BTC from your broker and sell them on the market at $200. You hope that the price crashes to $0 and your net profit will be $5,000.
3) What actually happens is that the price doubles to $400. It would now cost you $10,000 to close your position (buy the 25 BTC back at market prices).
4) Your broker realizes this and decides -- without asking -- that it doesn't like this state of affairs and closes the position for you, wiping out your margin.
5) You are now $10,000 poorer.
[+] [-] kevinpet|13 years ago|reply
A shorting mechanism makes it possible for people who are not bullish to participate in the price discovery process. Without a way to short, there are only two participants in the price discovery mechanism -- those who previously acquired bitcoin and now think that they're overvalued and those who think they will continue to appreciate and want to buy more. There is no way for someone who bought at $20 and got out at $100 to express an opinion that $200 is an unsustainable bubble.
Kid Dynamite wrote a good post about how an inability to borrow can keep a market irrational for a long time here: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/on-misinterpreting-pslvs-premiu...
It's irrelevant whether shorting bitcoin is going to make anyone money, or when shorting will make people money vs. when it will wipe you out on a margin call. I'm only talking about how the ability to short will make the market more efficient.
[+] [-] yarou|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Permit|13 years ago|reply
So when the price rises to $400 you would have to buy back the equivalent amount with $5,000 of your own dollars and $5000 from the original short.
[+] [-] jessriedel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kokey|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] T-hawk|13 years ago|reply
You are now $5,000 poorer. You received $5k from selling the BTC in step 2, which must be netted out against the $10k cover cost.
[+] [-] emin_gun_sirer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fixxer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeremyjh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conjecTech|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krichman|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelochurch|13 years ago|reply
I will also remark that, even when a bubble is underway, shorting is dangerous. If you don't know what margin calls are (and how much it sucks to get hit by one) then stay out.
[+] [-] waterlesscloud|13 years ago|reply
Whatever happens with bitcoin, that pace of commerce exists in the world now.
To me, the interesting thing to be doing at this point is figuring out how to take advantage of that speed with new business models.
[+] [-] txttran|13 years ago|reply
Essentially, most traders agree that the Japanese Government (JG) will have to soon increase the yield of their new bonds (which have historically been very low) because of Japan's huge and growing national debt (200% of GDP) and the slowly increasing risk of defaulting. Once this happens, the value of the current bonds in the market will drop because who wants to buy bonds with a lower yield at the same price? After the Fukushima disaster, investors thought for sure that the JG would increase yield to get more money to repair infrastructure, deal with a weakened economy, etc. Many, many hedge fund managers have shorted Japanese bonds and all of them have lost money. Yet, the idea persists and every day, traders are shorting JG bonds, convinced that it can't stay low forever. No doubt, one day it will pay off, but will you be the lucky one to cash in? Unlikely.
[+] [-] andrewljohnson|13 years ago|reply
It won't take much more than a large industry coalition to settle the price fluctuation around bitcoins, which will follow the basic organic market coalition... i.e. vendors accepting bitcoins.
In the future, we may not be using bitcoins, but you can bet we're going to be using coins made of bits. I don't know if my bitcoins will be worth anything eventually, but they will be an artifact of great change at least.
[+] [-] kokey|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinpet|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnbiche|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] everettForth|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nevster|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unclebucknasty|13 years ago|reply
If by "stabilize", you mean reduce volatility, I would bet no. I would say we could possibly see even more volatility once leverage and shorting enter the picture.
But, if by "stabilize", you mean put some downward pressure on the price, then I would guess maybe or even likely.
Under the traditional rules I would have more confidence in the latter than just maybe, but with bitcoin, it seems like we've long ago tossed the traditional rules.
[+] [-] lwat|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] heathendom79|13 years ago|reply
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