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Launch of Bitcoin Futures Trading Crashes CBOE Site (thestreet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the back-to-the-futures dept.

"5PM CT is the start of Bitcoin futures trading and the $CBOE website appears to be down," one market watcher posted on Twitter (and his observation was quickly confirmed by other cryptocurrency-watching accounts and confirmed by CBOE). "I'm guessing watching Bitcoin futures start trading is a more popular spectator sport than anticipated."

Bitcoin futures will also begin trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in eight days. The Street report that the anticipation of that "has triggered wild swings in bitcoin prices over the last week." Overall, trading bitcoin futures is a positive development for the cryptocurrency says the research team at Fundstrat... The introduction of derivatives lays the necessary market structure for institutions to allocate cash towards cryptocurrencies, points out Fundstrat... Short sellers may now express negative views on bitcoin, which could lead to short-term pricing pressure. But the ability for short sellers to hate on bitcoin could be viewed as a longer term positive, Fundstrat says. Shorting essentially creates true price discovery and means that hedge funds could take bitcoin more seriously. This should improve the long-term prospects of bitcoin as it broadens sponsorship, Fundstrat believes.

97 comments

  1. Bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Bitcoin is like Trump. Unstable.

    1. Re:Bitcoin by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Where can I get a betting line on Trump's antics?

      Bitcoin futures can put the lottery and bookies out of business. Who is 'making' this market? At this volatility? Good luck to them, if it works it will be insanely profitable. There are tons of compulsive gamblers, just got to get between them and the lottery vendor.

      Needs a good web frontend for short term simple bets: e.g. bet (er invest) $___ 1:1, 10:1, 100:1 (long/short) for market clearing in 15 minutes. Bang, verify, clear payment, bets on.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:Bitcoin by Rockoon · · Score: 5, Funny

      My daughter asked me to buy her $10.00 in bitcoin, so I asked her why she wanted $12.38 in bitcoin. She said she needed $7.92 in bitcoin so that she could subscribe to a podcast. I told her $19.52 was way too much for a podcast subscription. She stormed off upset that I wouldnt give her the $11.41 in bitcoin that she wanted.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    3. Re:Bitcoin by infolation · · Score: 5, Funny

      At least her temper tantrum saved you the $24.68 transaction fee.

    4. Re:Bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Attribution would be nice, cheetah...

    5. Re: Bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. Good job dragging out a joke and makin it less funny!

      A boy asked his bitcoin investing father for $10. The father said to the boy, âoe$7? What do you need $314 for?â.

    6. Re:Bitcoin by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

      Attribution would be nice, cheetah...

      Attribution to who? The joke is everywhere. Do you know the original source?

  2. Reality Check by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is no cryptocurrency rooted in reality and practicality. There are too many external factors required for it to exist. Electricity. Network communication. Programming. More than a cursory understanding of computers and keeping files protected and organized. And these are all easy links in the chain (no pun intended) to break with just one disaster whether natural or man made (or government made). Ultimately, it's totally impractical. We did and will learn a lot from this technology, however. Perhaps the most important knowledge gained is that governments should not and cannot be allowed to control the means of exchange. Other solutions exist and should be explored--most of which have existed since time immemorial. Precious metals. Bartering. Trade of services. These are first tier currencies that require nothing more than their existence and belief in the importance of that existence by humans.

    1. Re:Reality Check by infolation · · Score: 1

      LazyCoin is rooted in reality and practicality.

    2. Re: Reality Check by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are willing to sacrifice one of your snowflake followers to blow up the Federal reserve then maybe. I'd pay to see that.

    3. Re: Reality Check by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      US national debt is denominated in US national currency. Therefore it doesn't matter how imaginatively large the numbers become, fedgov can always pay. It's impossible for a sovereign power to "run out of money". Money is just numbers in a database - are we going to run out of inches or tons, too?

      The hard part is domestic price stability and maintaining a steady foreign exchange. That stuff can get really wrecked by bad monetary policy. But any actually-sovereign country can ALWAYS pay its own-currency denominated national debt.

    4. Re: Reality Check by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > It's impossible for a sovereign power to "run out of money".

      You mean "their own money". But even in your own country, it is the states and not the federal system, which is sovereign.

    5. Re: Reality Check by jbengt · · Score: 1

      But even in your own country, it is the states and not the federal system, which is sovereign.

      The federal and state governments are each considered sovereign, within their respective jurisdictions.

  3. Close by Orgasmatron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not all shorts help with price discovery. Covered shorts do, but naked shorts are just plain fraud, no matter what excuses the clearinghouses come up with.

    --
    See that "Preview" button?
    1. Re: Close by orlanz · · Score: 2

      Honestly I am surprised that BTC has come this far. I never would have guessed it would be allowed on any of the exchanges in this direct of a fashion. But NOW, it would be fairly interesting to watch.

      I wonder what category this security would fall under. Probably currency but can it be considered under âoeEnergyâ? Considering thatâ(TM)s itâ(TM)s primary input.

    2. Re: Close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      considered under âoeEnergyâ? Considering thatâ(TM)s itâ(TM)s

      Please call for help immediately. It looks like you're having a stroke.

    3. Re: Close by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Honestly I am surprised that BTC has come this far. I never would have guessed it would be allowed on any of the exchanges in this direct of a fashion.

      Why not? A commission is a commission. Let the fools gamble, the house never loses.

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re: Close by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2

      Honestly I am surprised that BTC has come this far

      We all are

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    5. Re: Close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "It was the Dukes! It was the Dukes!!!"

    6. Re: Close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually bitcoin seems so volatile that some banks were worrying about being on the hook for losses so large the traders couldn't cover them.

    7. Re:Close by icejai · · Score: 1

      It's not always that black and white.

      Kickstarter and Indiegogo can also be seen a market where products are almost exclusively sold as naked shorts.
      And yeah, many of them end up accused of fraud.

      Naked Short selling is also pretty common in the real world.
      IT companies sell contracts for services that don't exist yet, farms sell milk that don't exist yet, refineries selling distallates they haven't even produced yet, miners sell aluminium to BMW for their engines that hasn't been mined or refined yet, etc.

      And then there's someone ramming and jamming the orderbook of a stock to manipulate its price.

      Naked short selling *itself* isn't bad. Rather, the *reason* behind the selling is the real determining factor.

    8. Re: Close by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Nah, orlanz is fine. You better call the ambulance for Slashdot, though. Damn website is having a stroke every time someone posts something from an iPhone or iPad.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    9. Re:Close by Orgasmatron · · Score: 2

      Absolutely nothing that you listed is a short, much less a naked one, with the one exception of, thank God, an example of an actual naked short.

      Your examples were: venture funding, venture funding, development contract, hedging, hedging, hedging, naked short. Note that the first three do not happen on markets at all, while the hedging happens on markets that will enforce with the utmost strictness a very hard cap on your exposure. If you reach your credit limit on a futures exchange, the exchange itself will cancel out your position by buying inverse contracts, leaving you with a cash debt and your counterparties whole.

      Meanwhile, short selling a stock at the exchange level merely involves executing the sell order and never delivering. Your brokerage will get listed in the FTD report (FTD = Failure To Deliver) showing the outstanding settlement, but as far as I can tell, there is no other consequence.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    10. Re: Close by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      Is that a bug or a feature?

    11. Re: Close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet pretty much everyone on earth allows them....

      Look at silver... There are more open short positions than all the silver mined in the world.

      It's just a game. They are expecting people to only ever want fiat, so having to actually buy the item (silver/bitcoin) to close the position doesn't matter.

    12. Re:Close by ayesnymous · · Score: 1

      There are naked shorts with stocks, but there is no such thing as a naked short with futures.

    13. Re: Close by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      A trader isn't forced to accept your offers. If things are looking risky for them they can turn you away (or ask you for a ridiculous price, which is almost the same thing). All a trader needs to do is make sure the positive bets more or less cover the negative bets. If it swings too far one way then they just sell harder the other way. It more or less works out for them and volatility actually helps.

      The only way the math can really fail is if some seller thinks they're so smart they can ignore the formulas and beat the system.

      (which can happen, yes...)

      --
      No sig today...
    14. Re: Close by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      If this iPhone behaviour can finally get Slashdot and other websites to support unicode, that's definitely a feature.

    15. Re:Close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a BTC derivative, the underlying isn't actually traded on this market as such there are no covered and naked positions. Every future contract has a long and short side and they can both be equally leveraged (or not).

    16. Re:Close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dairy and Aluminium futures are absolutely a thing. Suppliers will take short side future contracts for products they haven't produced yet to even out cash flow. In that sense, as a commodity producer, a naked short is a form of hedging, that doesn't make it not a naked short though.

    17. Re:Close by devman · · Score: 1

      If you take a short position on a physically settled future for a product you do not produce (or haven't yet), that is essentially a naked short. Speculators do it all the time. It is no different than selling a call option, when you don't have the underlying, with the difference being an option may expire worthless, but a future contract always settles.

    18. Re:Close by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      I'm not aware of naked shorts being allowed anywhere. Do you know of a place where such exists. You can write calls or buy puts, but you can't actually short any securities that i know of without first borrowing the underlying asset.

    19. Re:Close by icejai · · Score: 1

      You're correct in the context of stocks, but I'm not talking about just the stock market.

      The underlying principle of a naked short is the sale of an asset that is not owned by the seller. Naked, by it neither being borrowed.

      Giving a naked short other names one level down to add specificty and context (your accurate categorizations of my examples) does not subtract from the nature of the underlying transaction -- the sale of an asset that is neither owned, or borrowed. A non-existent asset would satisfy the requirement of an asset neither being owned or borrowed, as required for a naked short sale.

  4. Future issues? Scalability? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doesn't the transaction rate of the bitcoin network make it generally unfeasible for rapid trading or day-to-day transactions?

    What happens when the cap is reached in terms of participation in the network? Wouldn't the transaction fees skyrocket when the only value in participating in the network is to get some of that transaction fee? It seems a very costly network to run given it is then based on just validating the transactions for the fee.

    1. Re: Future issues? Scalability? by orlanz · · Score: 1

      I man sure there will some form of separation from the real-time system. There will be some float and bulk execution. Volume just needs to be average maintained not kept in sync with reality to stay in the market. Thou of course covers, floats, and bulks will only smooth out the volume only so much. Upping transaction fees and building back into the equity price would help, but it too has limits.

    2. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My guess is you don't have to record every trade in the block chain. Brokerages themselves could just hold a shit ton of bitcoin in their own account, If it trades hands from one user the the other within their brokerage, there's no reason to report back out to the block chain, just update in their ledger who's holding what. Just as when you trade stocks these days you dont get a stock certificate in the mail.

      I am pretty sure this is how a lot of existing bitcoin exchanges have operated. Coinbase does not maintain a separate bitcoin wallet for all of their users, they have the bitcoin pooled in many large wallets and keep track of whom owns what on their ledger. It's not until you move it out of coinbase to your own bitcoin wallet that it gets recorded in the blockchain.

      If the brokerages run short, they could purchase more bitcoin, or if they have more in reserve than they feel comfortable holding without someone having claim to it, they sell it back off to the blockchain.

      And of course were talking about the financial industry here, you know they'll be cooking the books. Possibly selling off more bitcoin to their users than they actually own. Just like the games played in the financial industry involving cash and loans

    3. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      That last thing, that's just called shorting the market. If you do it, you gotta expect the broker will too. Just so they can cover, it's all good.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Brokerages themselves could just hold a shit ton of bitcoin in their own account

      LOL! Why do you think they're only trading in futures, not actual bitcoins?

      If it trades hands from one user the the other within their brokerage, there's no reason to report back out to the block chain

      Correct, but you can't trade arbitrary amounts that way.

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by ChumpusRex2003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes. There are several problems.

      The first, and most fundamental is that blockchain technology is inherently non-scalable. It is, effectively an ultra-redundant database system, operating on diverse hardware, in diverse regions, and which has a monotonically growing, non-prunable dataset. It is estimated that there are around 100k nodes in the bitcoin network maintaining a copy of the dataset, and participating in peer-to-peer replication. The total quantity of storage required for each database entry and the network traffic to replicate it are non-negligible.

      The proximate problem is an artificial limit on transaction capacity implemented several years ago. At present, the system is designed so that the dataset cannot grow by more than 1 MB every 10 minutes. This limit was put in place to avoid spam attacks resulting in a DDOS of the network. There is a non-trivial computational cost to validate each entry cryptographically. Even my quad core i7 CPU can take 10-15 seconds to validate a 1 MB database update message. Lesser nodes, like ARM devices which wish to maintain a full copy of the dataset may need to dedicate 10-25% of CPU time just to handling incoming updates (i.e. each message incoming at 600 second intervals may require 60-150 seconds of CPU time).

      The problem is that demand for transactions exceeds the hard limit. As a result, there is a queue of pending transactions, which currently stands at about 200 MB (or about 30 hours), with transactions removed from the queue in order of the amount they wish to pay as fees. This has led to spiralling fees as users try to outbid each other, in order to have their transactions accepted. Transactions with low fees have recently been timing out after 2 weeks in the queue and have been discarded unprocessed.

      There has been an attempt to increase the transaction limit. However, because the bitcoin system is decentralised and based on consensus, such an upgrade would require 100% participation. Anyone that fails to upgrade would find their software completely broken, possibly silently so, such that they could spend bitcoins, but they would not be received, with no warning to this effect. A very complex solution has been developed which permits an increase in the limit with backwards compatibility (as well as fixing some minor security bugs), but as yet the reference node implementation has no GUI or meaningful CLI/API access to it; the network and accounting implementation is fully featured, but there is no practical way to use it, short of developing your own transaction bitstream generator, using some sort of middleware or a 3rd party library with its own low-level API, or a non-reference implementation of the software. As a result, use of this new format has been very limited, and only about 10% of the achievable capacity uplift has been realised.

      This has seriously fractured the community. The incumbent developers take the view that the inherent inscalability of the blockchain concept means that development efforts should be focused on layered solutions. Transactions in the main bitcoin blockchain should be large value clearing transactions, which serve to aggregate large numbers of lower value transactions made at a second layer, with potentially microtransactions at a 3rd layer begin aggregated into 2nd layer transactions. Additionally, breaking changes should be avoided unless there is no other credible option, as not all participants run the reference code, and some may have made custom modifications which may require significant development time to implement new mandatory features.

      Other groups have taken the view that convenience and capacity available immediately are more important, and have proposed breaking changes. One group, calling themselves bitcoin cash, changed the transaction limit to an 8 MB soft limit, based upon the a configuration option settable in the node options, hence the network can be upgraded to a larger capacity, simply by the majority of participants increasing the soft limit on the

    6. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      I'm hopeful that Futures moves large speculative transactions off-chain, and Lightning network moves small ones off chain, so that the number of on-chain transactions will significantly decrease, relative to the use of BTC as and investment/currency. Eventually the main chain will just be used for large settlement transactions.

    7. Re: Future issues? Scalability? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hard limits on transactions? Oh goodie. Write a paper.

    8. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

      Doesn't the transaction rate of the bitcoin network make it generally unfeasible for rapid trading or day-to-day transactions?

      You're not trading coins. You're making a bet on the price at some date in the future.

    9. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      A node can run with only recent blocks, as long as the other data is available on the network.
      If could be made prunable; just copy the oldest blocks worth of unchanged balances into the top blocks, then you can discard the oldest blocks.

      Or even a Distributed Hash Table system to store older blocks.

    10. Re:Future issues? Scalability? by devman · · Score: 1

      These are cash settled futures on BTC (a financial derivative) as such no BTC is actually changing hands.

      Furthermore, on actual BTC exchanges trades are done off block chain. Your BTC ownership only recorded to the blockchain once you withdraw it from the exchange.

  5. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    What an original comment on Slashot ! always predicting 0 future price on bitcoin since 8 years ago.

  6. The smart money by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 1

    Can you short Bitcoin futures?

    1. Re:The smart money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah

    2. Re:The smart money by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

      Yes. Not only can you buy puts on BTC,as well as shorting long options. However, both markets have relatively high volatility, so the costs to invest in these instruments could be a bit high for a while. Also not to mention the old saying that "The market can stay irrational longer than a man can stay solvent, " which should be observed in all cases.

      --
      That is all.
    3. Re:The smart money by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Too complicated: Long/short, odds you want, duration (15 min, half hour, hour) amount of bet. Bang, deal should be done and legal. No account required, pre-paid CC accepted. No bitcoin.

      Use solar powered AI for your option pricing model!

      Damn SEC with its qualified option trader rules. Just doesn't want anybody cutting in on the state lotteries business IMHO.

      I think Joe sixpack should have just as much access to legal short term, high odds bets/investments, as wall street high rollers.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:The smart money by devman · · Score: 1

      Every futures contract has a long and short side. There are only two ways to acquire a future position, either you buy someone's obligation or a new contract is created when someone takes the opposite side of your position. For every party that is long, there is a party on the opposite side that is short. Much different from trading equities.

  7. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 1

    What an original comment on Slashot ! always predicting 0 future price on bitcoin since 8 years ago.

    We just need to talk about Jon Katz writing an article about Bitcoin using emacs on his linux desktop, all while listening to Metallica MP3s on his Microsoft Zune.

  8. I hope they fix it by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Funny

    I need to by some now! Before it becomes a bubble.

    1. Re:I hope they fix it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's still a long way off from being worth one million dollars per Bitcoin. You still have time.

      Don't believe it? Calculate the gain made since the first pizza transaction and then compare to the gain needed to reach one million. Bitcoin is magnitudes closer to one million.

    2. Re:I hope they fix it by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 1

      Let's see, 21-million bitcoins in existence times a price of $1-million each = $21-trillion total market cap (plus extra coins mined by that time). Yeah, that sounds plausible!

    3. Re:I hope they fix it by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      There will be less than 21 million coins, because there's already a few million that are lost. But even a $21 trillion market cap is only 3 times that of gold. I wouldn't rule it out.

  9. Welcome geeks to the things that matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Bitcoin is now becoming a thing that matters. Welcome, geeks. We will short the thing that matters. We will speculate on the thing that matters. Websites and co providing crucial infrastructure for the thing that matters will be ill implemented. By morons. It's becoming a thing that matters because people believe that it matters. Not because of reality. Or because of physical presence or existence. Rawly because of believe.

    Welcome all.

    Welcome to nothing. Welcome to everything.

    Tulip mania 2.0. Now in bitcoin. It is fantastic.

    1. Re:Welcome geeks to the things that matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is far more complicated than "the guy who didn't buy Bitcoin when he had the chance." The history of Bitcoin so far is full of scams and dishonesty. You might have used Mt Gox and got burned by the various lies they told. You might have used some other sketchy exchange that disappeared overnight. You might have mined some coins on your own machine, but lost the wallet, or had the wallet stolen by malware. Just think on that - the price of Bitcoin is so insane, and the infrastructure is so clumsy, that it was worth the investment of hacking groups to build malware specifically to steal wallets. Half of the people involved in the history of Bitcoin are running scams, and the other half are people who think they can beat the scams. "If I can hold long enough, if I can get in on the next dip, I will see a return of 1000%" - there is something that should be obviously wrong about that type of thinking.

  10. Ignore the pundits by DCFusor · · Score: 1

    Old saw: Those who know don't talk, those who talk, don't know, or are talking their book. Why should BC be any different - the ripoff artists in the casino haven't changed one bit. Yes, you can make money in tulips, or maybe we've reached a "permanent high plateau", or maybe someone strikes gold. But in the gold rush, the guys who made money either got out quick, or sold supplies to the prospectors. Similar stories for every bubble. You have been warned. The exit ramp is going to be very very crowded...

    --
    Why guess when you can know? Measure!
    1. Re:Ignore the pundits by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      don't worry, no money will be lost, not one cent.

    2. Re:Ignore the pundits by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      All the energy that went into it is lost.

    3. Re:Ignore the pundits by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Yes, but the money paid for that energy was not. Don't worry about the energy, there is no shortage of energy on this Earth or in this universe. Take comfort that the money is never lost, only changes hands.

    4. Re:Ignore the pundits by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      Of course there's a shortage of energy that we can easily harness, and generating energy creates pollution.

  11. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by Kaenneth · · Score: 2

    https://twitter.com/BitmexRekt...

    The fools who shorted are already getting squeezed, and losing their money.

  12. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by jmauro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

    - John Maynard Keynes

  13. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by JcMorin · · Score: 1

    This is a not a joke, you can short Bitcoin on many platform... go ahead!

  14. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

    Anybody who thinks this will make bitcoin go down is nuts. One of the biggest hurdles for the average joe has been getting his money in. Now that they can do it through their broker the price will spike.
    And if you think the price will eventually go to zero, you may well be right, but trying to predict when will break you first.

  15. SWEET by slshdtisctrldbysjws · · Score: 1

    Just what the market needs, more volatility!

    --
    My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
  16. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    ...all while listening to Metallica MP3s on his Microsoft Zune.

    If it's good enough for Star-Lord, it's good enough for me!

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  17. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    What an original comment on Slashot ! always predicting 0 future price on bitcoin since 8 years ago.

    The reasonable interpretation is that the collision attacks on SHA-1 and the shortcomings of binary elliptic curves are going to undermine bitcoin in the end. It may take a while.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  18. What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs? by misnohmer · · Score: 1

    Other than the fact that after the 1637 crash I guess you could plant the bulb or maybe even cook it and eat it.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

    1. Re:What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs ?

      A tulip bulb cost almost nothing to create. You can't divide or combine them. They rot. They don't fit in your wallet.

    2. Re:What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs? by James+McGuigan · · Score: 1

      It was quite literally a viral bubble:

      "The multicolor effects of intricate lines and flame-like streaks on the petals were vivid and spectacular and made the bulbs that produced these even more exotic-looking plants highly sought-after. It is now known that this effect is due to the bulbs being infected with a type of tulip-specific mosaic virus, known as the "Tulip breaking virus", so called because it "breaks" the one petal color into two or more."

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    3. Re:What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Sending money pseudonymously, independent of banks/corporations, across the globe in 10 minutes is much, much harder if you use tulips.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    4. Re:What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right cuz the world needs another currency controlled by a different group of jerks. Not to mention the amount of power needed to mine bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is useful for use cases beyond bitcoin. Bitcoin itself is a fucking stupid idea. Those who invest in bitcoin and get robed deserve the fruits of their foolish behavior. Tulips are definitely more carbon neutral than fucking bitcoins.

    5. Re:What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tulips are perishable, and the mania never happened https://www.smithsonianmag.com...

  19. Re: What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs by misnohmer · · Score: 1

    Takes energy, water, fertilizer, time, etc - not at all free to create and actually more involved than just being a mining rig you just plug in. You can "split" them by reproducing them via seeds. But yes, it doesn't fit in a regular sized wallet, so I guess that is the distinction. Gold bars also don't fit in the wallet. The dot-com stocks had the form factor same as bitcoins however. Hmmm....

  20. Re: What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulbs by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    Takes energy, water, fertilizer, time, etc - not at all free to create

    Admittedly not completely free, but really cheap. And most importantly, there's no reason for the trade price to go much above the cost to grow one, which puts a natural ceiling on the bulb's prices. And while you can plug in the mining rig, you still need to pay for electricity and the equipment itself, and those costs go up with the price of bitcoin.

    You can "split" them by reproducing them via seeds.

    I was talking about splitting in the context of producing change for a transaction, or combining small amounts of change in order to make a bigger transaction.

  21. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Put your money where your mouth is. Short it. Money talks, bullshit walks.

  22. now is the time to get out by sad_ · · Score: 1

    this is starting to look like the whole housing loan market scheme.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    1. Re:now is the time to get out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My thoughts, exactly. Buy today, sell today.

  23. Re: What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulb by misnohmer · · Score: 1

    Why do costs of operating a mining rig go up as the price of bitcoins goes up? Do you claim bitcoin is driving electricity prices? Do you think that PC's and GPU card prices are driven by bitcoins much?

  24. Not terribly surprised by Chas · · Score: 2

    I know the unmitigated yahoos running CBOE's back-end.

    Very "Let's do THIS!", then toss on a bunch of half-assed implementation, and then flipping a nut when things don't go as they imagined.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  25. The Emeror is naked. by jdharm · · Score: 1

    There, I said it; nothing bad happened to me. It's OK to point and laugh now.

    1. Re:The Emeror is naked. by jdharm · · Score: 1

      FYI, an Emeror is an Emperor in kidney failure - no P.

  26. Re: What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulb by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    Why do costs of operating a mining rig go up as the price of bitcoins goes up?

    Because the amount of Bitcoin that can be mined is fixed at 1800 per day.

    As the price of bitcoin goes up, more people will start running a mining rig (or expanding it if they already had one). As the total mining hashrate goes up, the protocol will increase the difficulty level to bring the rewards back to 1800 BTC/day. This means that the difficulty (and therefore the operating cost) will tend to an equilibrium with the price.

  27. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by michelcolman · · Score: 1

    Do you know many average Joes buying $17000 future contracts?

    No, these futures are to attract bigger capital. And if they succeed, we're in for one hell of a global economic crash when the bubble does burst. Imagine the hindsight on that one.

  28. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

    Do you know many average Joes buying $17000 future contracts?

    By "average joe" I meant people with traditional trading accounts. I should have been more clear. People who have accumulated wealth but the only way they invest it is through a brokerage house. There are a *lot* of people like that. People who love to jump on bandwagons when they hear about the latest thing. Such as those who clamor to get in on a hot IPO, for example. They have enough money to move the markets (for a while). Generally they don't do well in their trades.
    I didn't say these were designed for that type of investor, of course they're designed for the real money, but an early push will come from the unsophisticated.
    And you're right, if and when it collapses the hindsight will be tremendous, with people calculating how much they could have made by shorting at just the right time. It's so easy after the fact, but wallet-busting beforehand.

  29. Re: What makes bitcoins different than tulip bulb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the operating cost will tend to an equilibrium like you say, it means the operating costs will not increase, relative to the produced value. The operating costs will increase relative to the number of bitcoins produced, but the bitcoins produced will be more valuable.

  30. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by michelcolman · · Score: 1

    Indeed, I've been sure to have spotted the top multiple times. Each time I sold a fraction, but fortunately kept some in case I was wrong. I don't have nearly as much profit as I could have had, but I'll certainly keep a healthy profit no matter what happens.

  31. Forget bitcoins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you want mine your own cryptocurrency, you need a motherboard with 19 PCIe 1X slots to plug in 19 GPUs and a couple of 1200W PSUs.

  32. Bitcoin futures? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So let's see... People that think they are going to get rich quickly gambling on the future price of an object that is controlled by a relatively small group of people running a sort of pyramid scheme.

    Sure....

  33. Sweet Home! Alabama? by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 1

    "Big Men???" keep on turning
    Carry on like boys of sin
    Singing songs about the teen-girls
    He rapes 'ole' 'bamy once again and He likes 'em young

    Well I heard Mister Moore deny about her
    Well I heard ole Roy put her down
    Well, I hope Roy Moore will remember
    A southern folk don't need him around anyhow

    Sweet home Alabama
    Where the guys have not a clue (apparently)
    Sweet home Alabama
    Lord, it's startin' smell like poo

    In Ole 'Bamy they love the POTUS, boo-hoo-hoo
    Now we all did what we could do
    Now Pussy-Gate does not bother 'em
    Does your conscience bother you, tell the truth

    Sweet home Alabama
    Where the skies WERE so blue
    Sweet home Alabama
    Lord, can not these people be true?

    Now GOP has got Deniers
    And they've been known to twist the truth
    Lord they make nearly vomit
    They lie and cheat and steal, now how bout you?

    Sweet home Alabama
    Where the skies CAN BE AGAIN so blue
    Sweet home Alabama
    Lord, I promise to make it for YOU!

  34. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

    That's all you can do. You got to take a bit off the table from time to time, or else you're just playing the lottery. I bought Apple at $4 a share pre-split. And I don't mean just the most recent 7-1 split, I mean all the splits. If I had kept it all I would now have more money than I could possibly spend. But I didn't. How could I?