Coinbase Wins Approval To Sell Crypto Futures in US (bloomberg.com) 32
Coinbase has gained approval to sell cryptocurrency derivatives directly to retail consumers in the US. From a report: Coinbase Financial Markets, a subsidiary of the US's biggest crypto exchange, has secured approval from the National Futures Association to operate a Futures Commission Merchant and offer access to crypto futures. The offering will launch within weeks, according to a company spokesperson. Coinbase has been working on the derivatives push for some time. It applied for the NFA approval almost two years ago. In early 2022, it bought futures exchange FairX, which was already registered with US regulators. Renamed Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, it currently sends traders to buy futures from third-parties such as brokers. But with the NFA approval, Coinbase will be able to provide these same derivatives to users directly, first via Coinbase's main app.
here comes the hate!!! please post below lol (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, I'm just starting a betting pool how long 'til the people behind it get arrested.
Dibs on 2 months.
Financial instruments need to serve some useful pu (Score:4, Insightful)
It needs to serve some useful purpose to the market and society. While we can find plenty of examples of people who made a lot of money on crypto. There are more losers than winners. This should not surprise anyone because crypto does not create wealth, it only shuffles it between hands. You need a big pool of people who put money into crypto and a small people who take more out than they put in. This is a sort of anti-investment. The less of your own money you have in relative to the market, the better is your profit.
Traditional investments such as stocks, bonds, futures, and currency each serve a purpose. Stocks, even non-dividen yielding stocks, allow a company to raise capital and investors can trade those stocks on the belief that future offerings will meet or exceed the current price per share. Futures are a way to exchange risk and are quite important to keep a robust and stable market. Bonds are a traditional way to raise capital or money for governments and are a loan that offer guarantees and repayment. Currency exchanges facilitate international trade and the additional trading can stabilize currencies relative to each other.
Crypto is poorly regulated and does not offer any useful exhange of risk. We do not use crypto to raise capital, even though theoretically contracts could be constructed on the network there is no benefit in doing so. As a currency it is of course ridiculously volatile and has no advantage over a traditional currency exchange. Without even the ability to raise capital and produce growth, there seems to be little use for crypto. Except for the obvious use of extracting wealth from the retirement accounts of naive middle class people.
Re: (Score:2)
I feel like even after over 10 years of continual improvement of the crytpo space, people will still call it a ponzi scheme, it's going to zero, there's no value, etc. It seems illogical to keep this mindset doesn't it?
"The markets can stay irrational for longer than you can remain solvent"
--John Maynard Keynes
Re: (Score:2)
Nah it's logical because it's a fucking scam.
Bad news if you work for a living (Score:1, Redundant)
The only thing I've learned is that we never learn.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree this smells like 2008 over again, but if crypto is indeed little more than "fake" money, I foresee a crash of that market having an impact on actual economies about as much as some billionaire's "priceless" art collection going up in smoke.
Unfortunately, I do foresee the actual corruption in "real" currencies abusing a crypto crash to excuse and dismiss the crash of the rest of it, while arrogantly demanding another bailout due to the real impact. Bit more realistic.
The problem is those billionaires (Score:2)
Strange game, the only way to win is not to play. Or as one person put it, the problem with billionaires is that when one of 'em has a midlife crisis it's *everyone's* problem.
Re: (Score:1)
Crypto is most likely what Iran, Russia, and others use to get around SWIFT, until BRICS gets an alternative to the petroldollar.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
And the US taxpayer will make more money on the bailout. TARP was a net win for the US government figuring in interest and other payments.
Oh wow (Score:4, Insightful)
It's an official scam now.
Couldn't be worse than stock options contracts (Score:5, Insightful)
The market makers in the stock market, with the SEC's tacit approval, have manipulating options expiration almost down to a science. I don't see how this could be any worse for retail since Coinbase at least tends to be a very honest actor compared to the market makers in the stock market.
Re: (Score:2)
The market makers in the stock market, with the SEC's tacit approval, have manipulating options expiration almost down to a science. I don't see how this could be any worse for retail since Coinbase at least tends to be a very honest actor compared to the market makers in the stock market.
Incoherent ramblings of a man-child on wallstreetbets.
"This allegedly happens in regulated markets, so how could crypto be any worse?" /triplefacepalmeyeroll
At least they have good honesty feels, you go for it my man.
Re:Oh wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, "official"
NFA is an industry self-regulatory body, not a government oversight body with force of law. I believe the worst punishment for violating their rules is expulsion from the group.
This is the same association that should have been on top of the subprime mortgage debacle before it became a problem.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
It's an official scam now.
The difference between a financial scam and legitimate financial enterprise is whether or not Wall Street and Washington DC buys in.
Both are almost fully in, so like it or not, crypto is becoming as legit as stock, bonds, or if you want to be cynical about it, CDO's.
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
I was rejecting crypto because I wasn't losing money fast enough.
Now, with option trading, I can finally lose money at the accelerated rate I need!
Re: (Score:2)
Let me show you my idea for crypto options market futures NFTs! They're worth their weight in gold!
Holy hell. (Score:2, Insightful)
"How to Make Gambling More Gamble-y". Next step? Package up all of the products containing "bad" coins, insert one "good" coin (if you can find one), declare them AAA, and sell them on the derivatives market. Turn on the SEP field.
Coinbase wins approval to scam people (Score:3, Insightful)
Shorts too (Score:1)
If everyone involved only makes profit when the line goes up then the line will mostly go up. Short selling, sleazy as it is widely perceived, is necessary for good price discovery. The lack of good price discovery is why BTC is > 0.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense. You just have to look at the fundamentals, know how to read a balance sheet, and weigh it against comparable investments. Sarcasm? Somewhat.
What's crazy is that this snark isn't quite as true as it once was, what with El Salvador accepting it as payment and it being legitimized by things such as this futures approval.
So a fair comp is what? I still don't know--it's like gold without the utility, and I used to say BTC was making the goldbugs
Beneficial (Score:1)