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Is there a trusted broker that can be used to short Bitcoin? It's unclear to me if BTC will work in the long run, but it would be nice if all the people claimin
by sxp 6y ago
Is there a trusted broker that can be used to short Bitcoin? It's unclear to me if BTC will work in the long run, but it would be nice if all the people claiming it's going to crash would put their money where their mouth is. It's possible that the BTC market "can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent", but people have been saying this for the past decade and it's boring to see people make claims without updating their beliefs based on new evidence. At least the TSLA bears are investing money into short positions as a demonstration of their beliefs.
- hpkuarg 6y agoThe most regulated way to short it is via CME Bitcoin futures[0]. However, it's quite heavily leveraged at 5 bitcoins per contract -- meaning each contract is ~$157k of notional value at today's close. This, combined with the volatility of the thing, is easily above my personal risk tolerance, but obviously YMMV. Given the history of how financial bubbles play out, I personally would not recommend shorting it outright. [0]: https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/bitcoin_contract_specifications.html https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/bitco...
- microtherion 6y agoJust because it might be a bad idea to go long Bitcoin doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good idea to short Bitcoin. As you mention, market timing is always a problem in such trades. A problem more specific to Bitcoin is that the market is not all that liquid, and that it is subject to the whims of some whales. Last of all, I suspect that Bitcoin bets might carry a significantly higher counterparty risk that e.g. shorting TSLA.