SEC Approves First Leveraged Bitcoin Futures ETF (coindesk.com) 25
The SEC has approved the first leveraged cryptocurrency ETF in the United States, which will allow customers to gain bitcoin exposure by putting up only half the value of the bitcoin. The ETF is set to launch on Tuesday and corresponds with the CME Bitcoin Futures Daily Roll Index. CoinDesk reports: The regulator has not denied the application for the 2x ETF, Volatility Shares Chief Investment Officer Stuart Barton said, paving the way for its launch this upcoming Tuesday. "It's exciting to see digital assets in the ETF wrapper," Barton said.
You have been able to do this for a while. (Score:2)
Not as an ETF but you could do this before by buying shares of a bitcoin trust like GBTC.
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Well there goes our economy (Score:5, Insightful)
gambling on gambling (Score:1)
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The problem is that it doesn't kill the one being greedy but the one forced to save him.
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One has to admit however, that these activities are very profitable before they implode.
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.
They're very profitable after they implode (Score:3)
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Maybe you took paycuts. People who weren't playing in the real estate market or stock market got away Scot free. Anyone who HODLed their 401(k) through the disaster recovered. Many people are making more money (relative to 2008 dollars) than they did back then.
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One has to admit however, that these activities are very profitable before they implode.
Ponzi schemes typically are.
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The last thing we needed were bank seizures. Breaking them up into smaller regional/local banks? Maybe. At least then they'd be less free to take outsized risks. But entrusting all our assets to the Federal government? NO
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Just string up one or two bankers and the whole shit ends pretty fucking quickly.
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There is ALWAYS a never ending line of greedy bastards who will line up like cattle do in the slaughterhouse. They don't think anything really bad will happen to them; if they did they'd not take the risk. Your argument is like saying higher punishments deter crime. They barely make a dent; people don't assume they will fail and go ahead with it anyway (unless the punishment is worth the gains. simply guaranteeing they will always lose more than they gain actually works... if you can achieve the that perce
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There's a difference between gangbangers on the street and bankers in their office. I think George Carlin said it best:
"And you know, in this country, now there are a lot of people who want to expand the death penalty to include drug dealers. This is really stupid. Drug dealers aren’t afraid to die. They’re already killing each other every day on the streets by the hundreds. Drive-bys, gang shootings, they’re not afraid to die. Death penalty doesn’t mean anything unless you use it on
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Well, when the punishment is so severe it's a form of terrorism then irrational self-defense behavior will kick in. But if you just jail somebody and the level of FEAR is not high enough then people will just be optimistic and assume it won't happen to them; they will not get caught and they can plan calmly and rationally with a higher likelihood of success. Like I said, people don't assume they will fail which is why they make the attempts. Obviously how they handle risk is a big factor and the ones who d
Another tool of manipulation (Score:3, Interesting)
People are claiming this is a good thing, but it will become another tool to manipulate the price of Bitcoin...
By having a leveraged ETF it creates a channel whereby a huge volume of money can suddenly enter the ETF, driving up buying, or selling out of the ETF, creating a large sales volume.
It's lots easier for large funds to do this through an ETF than it is buying/selling Bitcoin directly...
Even though Bitcoin has been ramping up on this news, I am still out until I see more stability in crypto. Maybe a missed opportunity but also just seems too much like a gamble to be currently.
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Generally speaking, leveraged ETFs like this don't actually provide any stability to the underlying. They only work as short-term investments, but can be effective for things like hedging a transaction denominated in Bitcoin but where the COGS is in USD. You aren't supposed to hold them overnight, or said a different way holding them overnight has a cost of ~0.01% per day.
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Betting fiat money on BTC replacing fiat money? (Score:2)
So the thing (BTC) that was supposed to replace fiat money to settle payment, now has its future value speculated in an exchange so we can gamble on it with fiat money. So if BTC won and replaced fiat money, you can be rewarded with a whole lot of now useless fiat money? Genius. Anyone buying these get to lose no matter how it turns out.
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It actually does help facilitate transactions in BTC as it gives price stability via short-term hedging to a party where their costs might be in a fiat currency.
Great... (Score:2)
Let's put leverage on the most volatile currency on earth. That will go well....