8 ms·

Bitcoin Whale Shorted $1.1B Right Before Tariffs

Finnucane 1y ago
it’s hard to believe anyone in this administration would something so blatantly corrupt.
- TacticalCoder 1y ago
  [dead]
- jackmalpo 1y ago
  it's not hard*
  - jazzyjackson 1y ago
    that's the joke.png
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
jazzyjackson 1y ago
It makes me want to riot that we've allowed the presidents whole family to leverage their wealth on Bitcoin, its such an outrageous conflict of interest, literally with a few million up front you stand to become unbelievably wealthy by yanking the USD's reserve currency status. Real monkeys paw action here tho because I always liked the idea of BTC as a viable alternate to USD, but, not like this.
- JuniperMesos 1y ago
  [dead]
- 1oooqooq 1y ago
  they would have profited anyway. be it stocks or forex. using btc only makes it public i guess?
  - jazzyjackson 1y ago
    corruption is one thing, I would call it merely unfair (unfortunately not illegal) to trade with inside information or by pulling strings. Crashing the dollar for personal gain, tho, it's practically treason.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Not practically - crashing the dollar on purpose is actually treason.
  - lesuorac 1y ago
    Stocks are public. There's a been a lot of people doing moves ahead of other tariffs announcements.
    - pyuser583 1y ago
      Bitcoin is arguably more public than stocks - all transfers are publicized. Transactions on major stock markets are publicized, but private transactions are not.
    - 1oooqooq 1y ago
      they most definitely are not.
      - lesuorac 1y ago
        How do you think the SEC finds it's insider trading cases? They see a giant position placed ahead of a movement in the market and then ask the exchange who placed those trades. The only difference between an exchange and crypto is that cypto you can also see.
  - finghin 1y ago
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  As someone looking in at the USA from the outside, it absolutely blows my mind that the country went from “give up the peanut farm” to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$Trump Like… what!? I have no words.
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    It is genuinely amazing how fast it feels like it happened. The whole monica lewisnky thing happened because there was an investigation into Clinton making maybe 100k off a partnership with a guy who later got arrested. Granted that was over 20 years ago now, but like, hillarys emails???
    - billy99k 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - estearum 1y ago
        That's not what happened. What they said is that it was definitely a violation, there did not appear to be a chargeable crime.
        AnimalMuppet 1y ago
        Regular people get charged for that level of violating regulations around classified information. They also get charged for having classified information in their bathroom or in their garage.
        estearum 1y ago
        Yeah agreed. I'm not sure any civilian politician would really be charged for that type of violation though. Would've been nice if the DNC apparatus didn't downplay as if it didn't matter at all though: it does! Note that this is actually quite different from the Mar-a-Lago case where Trump was asked to return documents, he said he did, then said he didn't have them, then asked people "what if we just said we didn't have them", then he was asked to return them again, and he said he didn't know anything about it.
- anon191928 1y ago
  wait until you learn about where $trillions went in last decades of war.
pants2 1y ago
Worth noting that this whale has/had $10B worth of Bitcoin. So his $27M in profits is a whopping 0.27% gain while the rest of his portfolio dipped 10%.
- Gigachad 1y ago
  There can’t be that many people with $10B in bitcoin. Surely someone can work out who this is?
- jijijijij 1y ago
  I hope they lose it all to some teenagers getting kicks on discord.
gautamcgoel 1y ago
I'm confused: why would you short BTC if you knew in advance that additional tariffs would be announced? Wouldn't you expect that to increase the dollar value of BTC due to depreciation of the dollar?
- rhyperior 1y ago
  If only BTC were a decorrelated, alternative investment.
  - rcxdude 1y ago
    This. It has not, in practice, turned out to be the hedge that people assumed that it was.
- Finnucane 1y ago
  Why would you expect anything with BTC?
  - henry2023 1y ago
    Hating on Bitcoin was cool in 2015. It’s proven to be a reliable store of value asset, to the point that central banks are considering reserves on it. Bitcoin maybe as useless as gold, but that doesn’t make it more or less valuable.
    - lern_too_spel 1y ago
      > to the point that central banks are considering reserves on it. Specifically, central banks run by scammers and imbeciles. Nobody with any brains is going to put their reserves in something whose only value comes from the existence of greater fools and has the downside of propping up the North Korean government.
    - pfannkuchen 1y ago
      Tangential, but I find it strange how bank “reserve” means something entirely different from what it used to mean.
dmitrygr 1y ago
Expect to read about it here soon: https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/politician/Nancy%20Pelosi-P000197 https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/politician/Nancy...
luxuryballs 1y ago
So if the government itself is the one holding the bitcoin then you can bet it won’t investigate itself… and a few billion in bitcoin wouldn’t even go very far if they tried to use it as a funding source which is wild to think about.
jwpapi 1y ago
I think Occams Razor. Here I think it’s way more likely that the person who holds 10B in Bitcoin somehow by now has contacts to the inner circle of US government as being someone in the administration.
w10-1 1y ago
I'm grateful to those tracking and publishing this information, but as smoking guns go, the evidence doesn't seem particularly compelling. China announced their rare-earth restrictions on 10/9. Trump predictably over-reacts with tariffs on 10/10. The trader had plenty of reason to expect new tariffs, and some reason to expect Bitcoin to go down. If I were corrupt, I'd always make sure there was some justifying event in advance of my trade, even if I knew there was to be some precipitating event for a market swing. Plausible deniability.
- junto 1y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if people connected to the Chinese government are not also taking advantage of the fact that Trump is extremely easy to trigger, manipulate and predict.
bentt 1y ago
It was Bernie. He's had enough of this horseshit.

it’s hard to believe anyone in this administration would something so blatantly corrupt.

TacticalCoder 1y ago
[dead]
jackmalpo 1y ago
it's not hard*
- jazzyjackson 1y ago
  that's the joke.png
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

It makes me want to riot that we've allowed the presidents whole family to leverage their wealth on Bitcoin, its such an outrageous conflict of interest, literally with a few million up front you stand to become unbelievably wealthy by yanking the USD's reserve currency status. Real monkeys paw action here tho because I always liked the idea of BTC as a viable alternate to USD, but, not like this.

JuniperMesos 1y ago
[dead]
1oooqooq 1y ago
they would have profited anyway. be it stocks or forex. using btc only makes it public i guess?
- jazzyjackson 1y ago
  corruption is one thing, I would call it merely unfair (unfortunately not illegal) to trade with inside information or by pulling strings. Crashing the dollar for personal gain, tho, it's practically treason.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Not practically - crashing the dollar on purpose is actually treason.
- lesuorac 1y ago
  Stocks are public. There's a been a lot of people doing moves ahead of other tariffs announcements.
  - pyuser583 1y ago
    Bitcoin is arguably more public than stocks - all transfers are publicized. Transactions on major stock markets are publicized, but private transactions are not.
  - 1oooqooq 1y ago
    they most definitely are not.
    - lesuorac 1y ago
      How do you think the SEC finds it's insider trading cases? They see a giant position placed ahead of a movement in the market and then ask the exchange who placed those trades. The only difference between an exchange and crypto is that cypto you can also see.
- finghin 1y ago
jiggawatts 1y ago
As someone looking in at the USA from the outside, it absolutely blows my mind that the country went from “give up the peanut farm” to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$Trump Like… what!? I have no words.
- wredcoll 1y ago
  It is genuinely amazing how fast it feels like it happened. The whole monica lewisnky thing happened because there was an investigation into Clinton making maybe 100k off a partnership with a guy who later got arrested. Granted that was over 20 years ago now, but like, hillarys emails???
  - billy99k 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - estearum 1y ago
      That's not what happened. What they said is that it was definitely a violation, there did not appear to be a chargeable crime.
      - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
        Regular people get charged for that level of violating regulations around classified information. They also get charged for having classified information in their bathroom or in their garage.
        estearum 1y ago
        Yeah agreed. I'm not sure any civilian politician would really be charged for that type of violation though. Would've been nice if the DNC apparatus didn't downplay as if it didn't matter at all though: it does! Note that this is actually quite different from the Mar-a-Lago case where Trump was asked to return documents, he said he did, then said he didn't have them, then asked people "what if we just said we didn't have them", then he was asked to return them again, and he said he didn't know anything about it.
anon191928 1y ago
wait until you learn about where $trillions went in last decades of war.

pants2 1y ago

Worth noting that this whale has/had $10B worth of Bitcoin. So his $27M in profits is a whopping 0.27% gain while the rest of his portfolio dipped 10%.

Gigachad 1y ago
There can’t be that many people with $10B in bitcoin. Surely someone can work out who this is?
jijijijij 1y ago
I hope they lose it all to some teenagers getting kicks on discord.

gautamcgoel 1y ago

I'm confused: why would you short BTC if you knew in advance that additional tariffs would be announced? Wouldn't you expect that to increase the dollar value of BTC due to depreciation of the dollar?

rhyperior 1y ago
If only BTC were a decorrelated, alternative investment.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  This. It has not, in practice, turned out to be the hedge that people assumed that it was.
Finnucane 1y ago
Why would you expect anything with BTC?
- henry2023 1y ago
  Hating on Bitcoin was cool in 2015. It’s proven to be a reliable store of value asset, to the point that central banks are considering reserves on it. Bitcoin maybe as useless as gold, but that doesn’t make it more or less valuable.
  - lern_too_spel 1y ago
    > to the point that central banks are considering reserves on it. Specifically, central banks run by scammers and imbeciles. Nobody with any brains is going to put their reserves in something whose only value comes from the existence of greater fools and has the downside of propping up the North Korean government.
  - pfannkuchen 1y ago
    Tangential, but I find it strange how bank “reserve” means something entirely different from what it used to mean.

dmitrygr 1y ago

Expect to read about it here soon: https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/politician/Nancy%20Pelosi-P000197 https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/politician/Nancy...

luxuryballs 1y ago

So if the government itself is the one holding the bitcoin then you can bet it won’t investigate itself… and a few billion in bitcoin wouldn’t even go very far if they tried to use it as a funding source which is wild to think about.

jwpapi 1y ago

I think Occams Razor. Here I think it’s way more likely that the person who holds 10B in Bitcoin somehow by now has contacts to the inner circle of US government as being someone in the administration.

w10-1 1y ago

I'm grateful to those tracking and publishing this information, but as smoking guns go, the evidence doesn't seem particularly compelling. China announced their rare-earth restrictions on 10/9. Trump predictably over-reacts with tariffs on 10/10. The trader had plenty of reason to expect new tariffs, and some reason to expect Bitcoin to go down. If I were corrupt, I'd always make sure there was some justifying event in advance of my trade, even if I knew there was to be some precipitating event for a market swing. Plausible deniability.

junto 1y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if people connected to the Chinese government are not also taking advantage of the fact that Trump is extremely easy to trigger, manipulate and predict.

bentt 1y ago

It was Bernie. He's had enough of this horseshit.