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> No. They instead take your money, buy coal, and burn it. Nothing is left. Interesting, I never thought of it that way, and it makes sense. Since money is no

by bb88 5y ago

> No. They instead take your money, buy coal, and burn it. Nothing is left. Interesting, I never thought of it that way, and it makes sense. Since money is not created or destroyed the balance sheet on inflows and outflows of BTC to dollars must be zero at all times. And some x% (which is variable) of it is transferred to miners which is the so-called "transaction" cost. I guess there must be a point at which the bubble bursts, and that's when a run on BTC happens. At which point it should go swiftly down as the value of BTC has been taken out by the miners.

gunshai 5y ago
If you're so certain short it. The amount of wealth you would gain by being correct is immense. You should be spending every waking moment attempting to predict it. Something about anti btcers I don't get you'll wax how smart you are and how everyone else is dumb. Just put your money where your mouth is.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  Nassim Taleb pointed out that if you have no 'skin in the game' your opinion is actually less than worthless. Worth considering...
  - graeme 5y ago
    If you are long bitcoin, you hold bitcoin. If you are for some other asset vs bitcoin, you hold that asset and not bitcoin. Some things are simply tradeable, and his advice is not “throw money at the owners of a fraudulent casino to say you are short” Nassim Taleb himself wrote a paper arguing Bitcoin’s value is zero and sold all his Bitcoin. I do not believe he believes it is his moral duty to open a Binance account and make a short on a Tether Exchange
    - ashwagary 5y ago
      That's true and technically anyone that doesn't have bitcoin (or a bitcoin owning entity) in their portfolio has a short position open. So far, that 12 year short position has been a disaster for all of the people (literally every single person) on the planet.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  This is dreadful advice that nobody should follow. (1) Shorting has a completely different risk profile than going long. If you're short, you can lose an infinite amount of money. If you're long, the most you can lose is what you put in. Unless you're familiar with what it means to take a short position in traditional markets, for the love of God don't do it in crypto. (2) The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, and Herbalife has been chugging along since 1980 - in spite of the widely publicized 5-year-long short Bill Ackman took. Even if the shorts are right, timing it is extremely hard, and chances are you'll lose your shirt before then. (3) Most exchanges that permit short positions are criminal enterprises, all the major non-US ones are under investigation. Binance is under investigation by every major world financial authority including the Cayman Islands. They'll require you post collateral in crypto as well, which adds yet another layer of counter-party risk. Even if you're right, and you time it right, a collapse would likely wipe out Binance (or your collateral) - or it wouldn't and they just wouldn't pay you out, SFYL. (4) All exchanges have a huge interest in seeing the game continue, and are more than likely colluding to keep the price up. Most of us bears believe that Bitcoin exchanges are crooked Mob casinos - entirely in isolation of the fundamental Ponzi nature of the underlying asset. What you're suggesting amounts to telling someone who believes the casino is crooked to bet on red instead of black. The only way to win is not to play. [edit] Yes, you can short CME futures (with massive 200% collateral requirements), yes I've done it, yes I've made money, not you shouldn't. Nobody should.
  - gunshai 5y ago
    WOOOSH The point is that it's terrible advice. My point is people who espouse how smart they are about something should put up or shut up. 1.) there are a multitude of ways to you can do this on a decentralized exchange DYDX as well. Or a Mercantile exchange like BITMEX. 2.) Funny you should bring up Bill Akman he publicized his short position, and another investor took a counter bet to him. That investor so happened to do it out of (speculated) spite. So not really a good example but since we're here Herbalife was investigated and not found to be an MLM, although I'll grant you that the SEC came RIGHT up to the line in calling them an MLM scheme. 3.) I'll move past the criminal enterprise portion as that's for courts to decide. With respect to binance specifically there are multiple ways to go short I'll post the straight forward versions. Cash settled perpetual swaps, Coin settled perpetual swaps, Put option contracts, Margin shorting. The way I would recommend people short bitcoin is cash settled perpetual swaps, you will be paid out as there are insurance funds that are VERY LARGE you can see what they are, that will pay out winners should losers positions can't be sold to the market. 4.) So does every exchange with respect to the market they serve, the smart exchanges actually want to be price neutral as they view as a business, both FTX and Binance CEO go on the record about this. So you don't want to short BTC but you still think it's a ponzi scheme ... report it as such to the SEC. Accept that's a loss cause because bitcoin is deemed as property, furthermore a commodity and thus regulated by the CFTC. I'll finish about the crooked casino portion... you can do this in a decentralized fashion with DYDX or another de centralized exchange. EVEN IF you didn't want to take the time to do that. RIGHT NOW you can go to IBKR and take a short position on the greyscale trust which is essence a short position on BTC. FURTHERMORE if you think these exchanges are crooked and are doomed to fail. Take a short position on the exchange it self. Binance and FTX have their own coins (which are probably securities) that you can take short positions out on. Final words, how long must a market remain irrational before your prospectus is wrong about the market being irrational? The paradox is if you answer infinity, you may be "right" but you're still wrong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- amalcon 5y ago
  "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent." -- A. Gary Shilling
  - gunshai 5y ago
    You don't say.
- piva00 5y ago
  > Something about anti btcers I don't get you'll wax how smart you are and how everyone else is dumb. Just put your money where your mouth is. I don't have infinite money to keep propping up my short positions until this thing collapses. That's the reason, not because I don't want to put my money where my mouth is, it's because I don't have enough money to see the pay off. It's not that hard of a concept to grasp, I believe...
graeme 5y ago
Yeah pretty much. Except the miners don’t take the money, they burn the money. Mining has low barriers to entry (more or less) so you’d expect low profit margins. And the major costs are energy (lost forever) and ASICs (unfit for other purpose) So while most industries have costs that feed back into economy, mining costs are just burnt. But yeah beyond that it’s just musical chairs. Depends entirely on inflows. And those aren’t too high. Coinbase’s USD volume is $300,000,000-$1,500,000,000. And that’s buying and selling. You couldn’t sell the whole $1,500,000 and exit without crashing price. 2% depth negative is a bit over a million. So with an apparent $1 trillion in value in the btc market, the exit door is thin.
- bb88 5y ago
  I was looking for a graph that describes total transaction fees for the life of BTC in USD last night. Couldn't find one.
pas 5y ago
> Since money is not created Isn't USD created? Thus BTC functions as a USD sink. As the USD economy expands BTC represents some claims on it. It's a store of value that automatically appreciates (by design basically).

by bb88 5y ago

gunshai 5y ago

If you're so certain short it. The amount of wealth you would gain by being correct is immense. You should be spending every waking moment attempting to predict it. Something about anti btcers I don't get you'll wax how smart you are and how everyone else is dumb. Just put your money where your mouth is.

ashwagary 5y ago
Nassim Taleb pointed out that if you have no 'skin in the game' your opinion is actually less than worthless. Worth considering...
- graeme 5y ago
  If you are long bitcoin, you hold bitcoin. If you are for some other asset vs bitcoin, you hold that asset and not bitcoin. Some things are simply tradeable, and his advice is not “throw money at the owners of a fraudulent casino to say you are short” Nassim Taleb himself wrote a paper arguing Bitcoin’s value is zero and sold all his Bitcoin. I do not believe he believes it is his moral duty to open a Binance account and make a short on a Tether Exchange
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    That's true and technically anyone that doesn't have bitcoin (or a bitcoin owning entity) in their portfolio has a short position open. So far, that 12 year short position has been a disaster for all of the people (literally every single person) on the planet.
arcticbull 5y ago
This is dreadful advice that nobody should follow. (1) Shorting has a completely different risk profile than going long. If you're short, you can lose an infinite amount of money. If you're long, the most you can lose is what you put in. Unless you're familiar with what it means to take a short position in traditional markets, for the love of God don't do it in crypto. (2) The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, and Herbalife has been chugging along since 1980 - in spite of the widely publicized 5-year-long short Bill Ackman took. Even if the shorts are right, timing it is extremely hard, and chances are you'll lose your shirt before then. (3) Most exchanges that permit short positions are criminal enterprises, all the major non-US ones are under investigation. Binance is under investigation by every major world financial authority including the Cayman Islands. They'll require you post collateral in crypto as well, which adds yet another layer of counter-party risk. Even if you're right, and you time it right, a collapse would likely wipe out Binance (or your collateral) - or it wouldn't and they just wouldn't pay you out, SFYL. (4) All exchanges have a huge interest in seeing the game continue, and are more than likely colluding to keep the price up. Most of us bears believe that Bitcoin exchanges are crooked Mob casinos - entirely in isolation of the fundamental Ponzi nature of the underlying asset. What you're suggesting amounts to telling someone who believes the casino is crooked to bet on red instead of black. The only way to win is not to play. [edit] Yes, you can short CME futures (with massive 200% collateral requirements), yes I've done it, yes I've made money, not you shouldn't. Nobody should.
- gunshai 5y ago
  WOOOSH The point is that it's terrible advice. My point is people who espouse how smart they are about something should put up or shut up. 1.) there are a multitude of ways to you can do this on a decentralized exchange DYDX as well. Or a Mercantile exchange like BITMEX. 2.) Funny you should bring up Bill Akman he publicized his short position, and another investor took a counter bet to him. That investor so happened to do it out of (speculated) spite. So not really a good example but since we're here Herbalife was investigated and not found to be an MLM, although I'll grant you that the SEC came RIGHT up to the line in calling them an MLM scheme. 3.) I'll move past the criminal enterprise portion as that's for courts to decide. With respect to binance specifically there are multiple ways to go short I'll post the straight forward versions. Cash settled perpetual swaps, Coin settled perpetual swaps, Put option contracts, Margin shorting. The way I would recommend people short bitcoin is cash settled perpetual swaps, you will be paid out as there are insurance funds that are VERY LARGE you can see what they are, that will pay out winners should losers positions can't be sold to the market. 4.) So does every exchange with respect to the market they serve, the smart exchanges actually want to be price neutral as they view as a business, both FTX and Binance CEO go on the record about this. So you don't want to short BTC but you still think it's a ponzi scheme ... report it as such to the SEC. Accept that's a loss cause because bitcoin is deemed as property, furthermore a commodity and thus regulated by the CFTC. I'll finish about the crooked casino portion... you can do this in a decentralized fashion with DYDX or another de centralized exchange. EVEN IF you didn't want to take the time to do that. RIGHT NOW you can go to IBKR and take a short position on the greyscale trust which is essence a short position on BTC. FURTHERMORE if you think these exchanges are crooked and are doomed to fail. Take a short position on the exchange it self. Binance and FTX have their own coins (which are probably securities) that you can take short positions out on. Final words, how long must a market remain irrational before your prospectus is wrong about the market being irrational? The paradox is if you answer infinity, you may be "right" but you're still wrong.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
amalcon 5y ago
"Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent." -- A. Gary Shilling
- gunshai 5y ago
  You don't say.
piva00 5y ago
> Something about anti btcers I don't get you'll wax how smart you are and how everyone else is dumb. Just put your money where your mouth is. I don't have infinite money to keep propping up my short positions until this thing collapses. That's the reason, not because I don't want to put my money where my mouth is, it's because I don't have enough money to see the pay off. It's not that hard of a concept to grasp, I believe...

graeme 5y ago

Yeah pretty much. Except the miners don’t take the money, they burn the money. Mining has low barriers to entry (more or less) so you’d expect low profit margins. And the major costs are energy (lost forever) and ASICs (unfit for other purpose) So while most industries have costs that feed back into economy, mining costs are just burnt. But yeah beyond that it’s just musical chairs. Depends entirely on inflows. And those aren’t too high. Coinbase’s USD volume is $300,000,000-$1,500,000,000. And that’s buying and selling. You couldn’t sell the whole $1,500,000 and exit without crashing price. 2% depth negative is a bit over a million. So with an apparent $1 trillion in value in the btc market, the exit door is thin.

bb88 5y ago
I was looking for a graph that describes total transaction fees for the life of BTC in USD last night. Couldn't find one.

pas 5y ago

> Since money is not created Isn't USD created? Thus BTC functions as a USD sink. As the USD economy expands BTC represents some claims on it. It's a store of value that automatically appreciates (by design basically).