CBOE and CME futures have ZERO effect on bitcoin price

[ktabb]

I just wanted to clarify that bitcoin futures have no affect on the price of bitcoin, because a lot of people here seem to misunderstand that. The futures do not involve the actual exchange of bitcoin or any kind of interaction with bitcoin. They are essentially just bets on the price of bitcoin, and they are completely cash settled. No bitcoin gets bought, sold, or shorted when anybody does anything with CME or CBOE futures. The futures expiration date likely has no effect on the price of bitcoin at all.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there's no group of rich "shorts" using futures to manipulate the price of bitcoin or anything (like many people here seem to believe) because that concept just doesn't make sense.

[hisslyness]

I think most people know that BTC is not exchanged at settlement...

But..

Couldn't someone sell 1M contracts.. and just before contract expiration, sell 1000BTC at market? Maybe they have another 100,000BTC more...

Maybe it is the other way around, Instead of using Futures Market to manipulate the BTC Market, they are using the BTC Market to manipulate the Futures Market...

[Enjel]

I just wanted to clarify that bitcoin futures have no affect on the price of bitcoin, because a lot of people here seem to misunderstand that. The futures do not involve the actual exchange of bitcoin or any kind of interaction with bitcoin. They are essentially just bets on the price of bitcoin, and they are completely cash settled. No bitcoin gets bought, sold, or shorted when anybody does anything with CME or CBOE futures. The futures expiration date likely has no effect on the price of bitcoin at all.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there's no group of rich "shorts" using futures to manipulate the price of bitcoin or anything (like many people here seem to believe) because that concept just doesn't make sense.

I think we perfectly understand that - at least I do.

However, the point is that these people didn't become billionaires by "betting" and getting lucky.

They have *a lot* of money at their disposal, especially if they team up, and can easily:

(1) Pump the price up by buying a lot of Bitcoin - a lot being like 2% of their total portfolio...
(2) Dump it on the market at an opportune moment - exploit panic to further the avalanche... why do you think all MSN is negative on Bitcoin?
(3) Collect short money - profit
(4) Buy at low prices so that they can rinse and repeat the process.

Why does this make no sense?

When I say that CBOE impacts the Bitcoin prices, I didn't mean directly.

[ktabb]

I think most people know that BTC is not exchanged at settlement...

But..

Couldn't someone sell 1M contracts.. and just before contract expiration, sell 1000BTC at market? Maybe they have another 100,000BTC more...

Maybe it is the other way around, Instead of using Futures Market to manipulate the BTC Market, they are using the BTC Market to manipulate the Futures Market...

Yeah that's entirely possible. It could go the other way around, but it would be difficult. Bitcoin volume is pretty high so it really takes a lot of money for one person to move the price. It would likely take hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin. For a large hedge fund that's not much money, but large hedge funds can't invest in unregulated assets.

[ktabb]

I just wanted to clarify that bitcoin futures have no affect on the price of bitcoin, because a lot of people here seem to misunderstand that. The futures do not involve the actual exchange of bitcoin or any kind of interaction with bitcoin. They are essentially just bets on the price of bitcoin, and they are completely cash settled. No bitcoin gets bought, sold, or shorted when anybody does anything with CME or CBOE futures. The futures expiration date likely has no effect on the price of bitcoin at all.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there's no group of rich "shorts" using futures to manipulate the price of bitcoin or anything (like many people here seem to believe) because that concept just doesn't make sense.

I think we perfectly understand that - at least I do.

However, the point is that these people didn't become billionaires by "betting" and getting lucky.

They have *a lot* of money at their disposal, especially if they team up, and can easily:

(1) Pump the price up by buying a lot of Bitcoin - a lot being like 2% of their total portfolio...
(2) Dump it on the market at an opportune moment - exploit panic to further the avalanche... why do you think all MSN is negative on Bitcoin?
(3) Collect short money - profit
(4) Buy at low prices so that they can rinse and repeat the process.

Why does this make no sense?

When I say that CBOE impacts the Bitcoin prices, I didn't mean directly.

It seemed like you didn't understand this because I saw many of your posts implying that shorts on cboe and cme would be putting downward pressure on btc, which is impossible.

Regarding the rest of your post, bear in mind that what you just described would require billions of dollars, and not many billionaires own bitcoin (that we know of). The ones who do tend to hodl (like the Winklevii). There is no evidence to suggest that any individual is causing these moves in the market, and there is no reason to believe that. Panic selling after irrational exuberance is normal bitcoin behavior.

Another thing to keep in mind is that liquidity issues make it nearly impossible for someone (individual) to buy and sell hundreds of millions of dollars of bitcoin at a time. Furthermore, I doubt any intelligent billionaire would trust any of the unregulated bitcoin exchanges to hold hundreds of millions of their hard earned dollars.

[Enjel]

I just wanted to clarify that bitcoin futures have no affect on the price of bitcoin, because a lot of people here seem to misunderstand that. The futures do not involve the actual exchange of bitcoin or any kind of interaction with bitcoin. They are essentially just bets on the price of bitcoin, and they are completely cash settled. No bitcoin gets bought, sold, or shorted when anybody does anything with CME or CBOE futures. The futures expiration date likely has no effect on the price of bitcoin at all.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there's no group of rich "shorts" using futures to manipulate the price of bitcoin or anything (like many people here seem to believe) because that concept just doesn't make sense.

I think we perfectly understand that - at least I do.

However, the point is that these people didn't become billionaires by "betting" and getting lucky.

They have *a lot* of money at their disposal, especially if they team up, and can easily:

(1) Pump the price up by buying a lot of Bitcoin - a lot being like 2% of their total portfolio...
(2) Dump it on the market at an opportune moment - exploit panic to further the avalanche... why do you think all MSN is negative on Bitcoin?
(3) Collect short money - profit
(4) Buy at low prices so that they can rinse and repeat the process.

Why does this make no sense?

When I say that CBOE impacts the Bitcoin prices, I didn't mean directly.

It seemed like you didn't understand this because I saw many of your posts implying that shorts on cboe and cme would be putting downward pressure on btc, which is impossible.

Regarding the rest of your post, bear in mind that what you just described would require billions of dollars, and not many billionaires own bitcoin (that we know of). The ones who do tend to hodl (like the Winklevii). There is no evidence to suggest that any individual is causing these moves in the market, and there is no reason to believe that. Panic selling after irrational exuberance is normal bitcoin behavior.

Another thing to keep in mind is that liquidity issues make it nearly impossible for someone (individual) to buy and sell hundreds of millions of dollars of bitcoin at a time. Furthermore, I doubt any intelligent billionaire would trust any of the unregulated bitcoin exchanges to hold hundreds of millions of their hard earned dollars.

When you put it like that, it seems unlikely. Nevertheless, 1/17 was exactly the date on which CBOE futures were closed, and then Bitcoin suddenly made a sharp recovery, and has maintained it thus far. Coincidence..? Maybe, maybe not.

It wouldn't be easy, not at all. But a coordinated effort by a group could make it work out, as long as it was stretched over a period of time. That's why I'm second-guessing the 19k run-up, since insiders undoubtedly knew the CBOE/CME was coming up... and we know what happened to the price right after.

[fabiorem]

CBOE and CME themselves, as institutions, dont have any effect on bitcoin price, really.

But we cant say the same from hedge funds who are betting on these houses. They can buy bitcoin in exchanges, pumping the price, and then dump it easily, one or two weeks before the contract expires. And it is not a single billionaire, but institutions, hence this steep rise.

Just compare October and December rises. October had a organic rise, just people buying, but December was meteoric, big green candles. Some will say it was adoption, but people usually sell by Christmas, pay taxes and then come back after January. Surely it was institutions buying after futures opened.