Bitcoin Futures Surge In First Day Of Trading (npr.org) 64
On their first day of trading, bitcoin futures surged past $18,000, adding to a streak for the digital currency that began the year at just $1,000 and has nearly tripled in value over the past month alone. From a report: Reuters reports that bitcoin futures, traded through the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), saw January contracts, which opened at $15,460 in New York on Sunday evening, leap to a high of $17,170 during Asian hours. Trading, which began at 6 p.m. ET (5 p.m. CT), was so intense that halts designed to cool volatility were triggered twice on the CBOE. The halts are "not surprising based on the volatility of the underlying [asset]. The futures are behaving as expected and designed," Tom Lehrkinder, senior analyst at consulting firm Tabb Group, was quoted by CNBC as saying.
I'm rich (Score:5, Funny)
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I dunno... someone's going to fall. I do think that BC is valid, but trading at these prices is insane. the bubble will pop
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I do think that BC is valid
Why is it valid? It's like paying $50 using Visa/MC and it being worth $45 or $55 by the time the merchant at the other end receives it.
I think BTC has no value, because it is a service (money transfer), not a thing with intrinsic value. Gold can be used to make useful things. Stock prices are based on how much the company makes or is going to make. BTC has has none of that. It's like taking monopoly money and assigning arbitrary USD value to it... completely fake.
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Paper notes printed by governments have no intrinsic value either. Except that people generally (or universally) accept them as having value. You can't print them yourself (those are not accepted as having value) and you can't mine them. They can only be obtained in exchange for something else of commensurate value (labor, goods, services, knowledge, information, etc.)
At one time, many people did not accept those "worthless" pieces of paper as being a valid currency. And now, most people will not accept a c
Re: I'm rich (Score:1)
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But they will, and there will be many, not just Bitcoin.
I don't think so, on a few different levels and for a few different reasons.
First, as to why there won't be many: It's too much to keep track of. You need to verify the integrity of each cryptocurrency and keep track of the exchange rate. It's not like people are just going to accept a cryptocurrency because it's been invented. So if cryptocurrencies do take hold, people will likely adopt a small number of well regulated ones. Far from providing a currency outside of government control, people will pro
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Surely ones a futures market stabilizes some that should improve things there. Bitcoin payment processors will be able to use futures contracts to help create a payment that's less volatile.
Who is the Greater Fool? (Score:2)
Surely ones a futures market stabilizes some that should improve things there. Bitcoin payment processors will be able to use futures contracts to help create a payment that's less volatile.
Expecting derivative financial instruments to make the market more stable is a recipe for tears. That is NOT what they do in the real world, especially when there is a lot of speculation going on which is almost entirely what is happening with bitcoin. Prices don't change that fast when people are using derivative instruments for hedging purposes. All that is happening is a bunch of greedy people playing a game of "Who is the Greater Fool".
It's a trap! (Score:3, Insightful)
At this time, anybody that still has BC is just trying to quietly get rid of them before the big crash. Hence they need lots of fools to buy.
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None of the exchanges have enough cash on hand to cash out even a small percentage of holders thanks to the inflated price point. The moment any amount greater than a few percent goes to cash out the exchange is broke.
It is good no one wants to cash out because no one can.
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From what I understand, most exchanges just match buyer to seller. No buyer, no cash out. One exchange that buys BC directly, very obviously put an emergency stop mechanism to it just recently (because even a smaller crash would wipe them out), which probably is just a facade for actually also starting to match buyers to sellers: https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
So who's buying the bitcoins? (Score:5, Interesting)
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So, they buy a bitcoin now, and in a thousand years sell it for a billion, right? The magic of compound interest!
or.... (Score:2)
nomorebitcoinstories (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot: News about bitcoin. Stuff that's boring.
You can copy and paste the comments from the last 100 BTC stories verbatim, there's nothing new to say at this point.
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Bits are for coins.
You are all coins. Coins say bit. BIIIIIT! BIIIIIIT! Bit coins BIIIIIIT! Bit say the coins. YOU BITTY COINS!!
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Re:Bubbles gonna pop (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm laughing all the way to the bank.
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When it does, I want to see the look on the face of that stupid fucker who was just on CNN talking to Richard Quest, using "crypto" as a shorthand term for cryptocurrencies. Fuck that guy, I hope he loses everything for his linguistic war crimes.
Also it was weird watching a wall street suit talk on a mainstream news channel about how much he likes some of the more private cryptocurrencies, which are practically indistinguishable from purpose-built financial crime instruments. How are the relevant authoritie
We will see (Score:2)
Re:We will see (Score:4, Interesting)
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From my humble perspective, the price of Bitcoin is rising so spectacularly because there are so few sellers.
Who in their right mind would sell Bitcoin when it has been rising non-stop and therefore *seems* to be such a great investment? It's a self fulfilling prophecy - everyone expects it to rise so nobody is selling so those who want in have to pay exorbitant prices.
But this same fact also makes it completely unsuitable as a currency. The volatility is too high and the fluidity is too low. At the moment
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Sounds to me like Bitcoin doesn't scale very well.
That's why developers are working on higher layer protocols, such as Lightning Network, that need to handle nearly all transactions, and only use the underlying layer-1 for settling combined payments.
Compare it to the time when we had a gold standard. People transacted with pieces of paper, each representing a bit of gold, but the gold remained in the vaults.
Did not work then and won't work now (Score:2)
That's why developers are working on higher layer protocols, such as Lightning Network, that need to handle nearly all transactions, and only use the underlying layer-1 for settling combined payments.
That's evidence that the system isn't working, not evidence that it is sound.
Compare it to the time when we had a gold standard. People transacted with pieces of paper, each representing a bit of gold, but the gold remained in the vaults.
You do realize that the gold standard system didn't work, right? We left the gold standard because it was fundamentally broken and there is no evidence to suggest that bitcoin will do any better. I think blockchains have some pretty interesting applications but bitcoin is unlikely to be among them.
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Is the price rising because of a real value, or inflated because of people thinking they will get rich quick?
Since a bitcoin is nothing more than an answer to a riddle, that is an easy question. A bitcoin has no value. For some strange reason, is has a price, but please don't mix the two, as value and price have little in common nowadays. Value belongs to economy (things people do), while price belongs to finance (cashing big nonsense). If you want to get rich, don't make your hands dirty. If you want to be a member of society, by all means do.
Gambling time! (Score:3)
Seriously, who knows what BitCoin is going to do?
I want to know who's buying/selling puts and gets at ~$18K for Pete's sake. Futures trading may smooth out the peaks of BTC some, but the volatility of BTC is huge, given there is literally nothing but the belief it will be valuable at some time in the future.
Somebody is going to make a killing trading these futures, but I will guarantee that it won't likely be you unless you are able to play the futures game and then it's anybody's guess. If the future contracts are hitting the trading stops on the first day, it's a crap shoot. Is BTC going up or down? Flip a coin. Want to buy futures then trade them in the money? Great, but hitting the stops may keep you from realizing a profit. So you have a 50/50 chance to be "in the money" while you have a less than zero chance of not being able to close the position and clear a profit. This means you have a less than 50/50 chance of making money.
Don't do it.... At least don't use money you cannot afford to lose.. You are basically playing roulette, and the odds are not in your favor. I don't want to hear the complaining about all the money lost when the bottom falls out and the panic selling starts.
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I don't want to hear the complaining about all the money lost when the bottom falls out and the panic selling starts.
Actually, I think you really do want to hear the complaining. :)
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Bitcoin endgame (Score:1)
It would be hilarious if bitcoin was designed to have criminal organizations invest trillions into a relatively untraceable currency and then have a kill switch that rendered all wallets null and void.
come on mods (Score:2)
I think it is a funny idea, but it is interesting.
Bitcoin futures != bitcoin (Score:2)
On their first day of trading, bitcoin futures surged past $18,000, adding to a streak for the digital currency that began the year at just $1,000 and has nearly tripled in value over the past month alone.
First off, saying bitcoin futures surged past a particular price is somewhat misleading because futures contracts on an exchange don't have a single price nor is that price the same as the price of the underlying asset. A futures contract has a price for the asset on the delivery date but the price of the futures contract is separate from the price they'll pay for the asset. The price of a futures contract might be $50 for an asset with a price of $18000. The price of the futures contract is dependent o
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Exactly. I have made a reasonable stack of money in futures, but must admit that trading in a market that halts twice in a day seems like a recipe for tears,
Menace to Earth & Society (Score:2)
Bitcoin is an energy hog and a money-laundering black hole. Killit!
Halting trading (Score:2)
Halting of trading has always seemed to me to be a scam in itself. It prevents the big drops that allow patient people to make some money.
The people in the know ... (Score:2)