nrd525 Market Tracker

[nrd525]

Apparently Bitbet.us earned 28.66 BTC in 2015-2016 (or $30,000 at the highest BTC valuation for that period) - so volume of 2866 BTC ($3 million at the most) and a 1% fee.    Augur will benefit from shareholders promoting it, but $1 billion in volume is quite the stretch.

Bitbet.us was sold for 86 BTC, 3 times P/E according to this post in April 2016:
http://www.contravex.com/2016/04/07/that-time-i-let-outright-ownership-of-bitbet-slip-through-my-fingers/

Also the new owner increased the Bitbet.us fee to 2%.  I think it is hilariously stupid when people justify this by saying they are "buying/renting new servers" when clearly they just want your money and most of the time the servers are less than 10% of their costs.

If Augur were to do $10 million volume, they'd earn $100k (or maybe 200k if they double fees), and the company would be worth around $300k at a 3 P/E ratio (or 1 million at a 10 P/E ratio).  So it is possible that they are over-valued by as much as 1000.  Now they'll probably do a better job of publicizing the website than bitbet.us former owner Mircea Popescu did (he is a very strange person - see his blog on trilema.com).

[nrd525]

I was figuring that you could short the ICOs on Poloniex, but does Poloniex only offer margin trading for around 10-15 things? That's what it looks like at my account (though I'm not an experienced Poloniex trader - so I figured the option might be hiding in settings or something).

If so, this helps explain the ICO boom (and alt-coin boom) as people who might want to short them cannot easily do so.  In a similar fashion, margin trading for Bitcoin was under-developed in the 2013 boom (Bitfinex offered it - though the system was new, unstable at times, and the amount of available margin funding was much lower than now).

If most of the other alt-coins and ICOs cannot be shorted, the best way to short might be to short Ethereum.  I think BTC will also go down when the ICOs crash, but that could be smaller.

...

If there is any where I could short Augur (REP), let me know!

[nrd525]

BFX USD swap rate is effectively at 0.039%/day and falling/crashing.

[nrd525]

Lots of bitcoin future blocksize/segwit drama.  Down to 1820 and then now back up to 2700. 

Possibly a good spike as Segwit activation locks in or as/if it happens.  Possibly a large decline after it happens, and/or after the ICOs and altcoins collapse.

BFX USD swaps new ATH of $84 million, up $8 million in the past 24 hours.  And either eating the BFX USD swap whale or they removed part of their ask wall.  So rates are (probably temporarily) spiking to 0.3%/day or more.

[nrd525]

Bitcoin is up around 25% in the past 24 hours which is the greatest rate of increase possibly since the Coinbase Nov 2015 bull market, or maybe even greater than that.

[nrd525]

BFX USD swaps at $89 million AND there is another $33 million on offer at high rates (0.2%/day to 1%/day). It's pretty interesting that much money is sitting on the exchange without earning money (unless there is a rate spike).

[nrd525]

This could be the beginning of the end for ICOs:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-25/u-s-signals-clampdown-on-red-hot-digital-coin-offerings

[nrd525]

This security firm insights are interesting.  Apparently the Willy bot was real.

http://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html

[nrd525]

At Bitfinex you can see $2 million steps in the USD swap asks.   Presumably from the USD Swap Whale.    Meanwhile swap is down by $12 million, but the amount available is still the same ($33 million).  Looks managed.

https://bfxdata.com/swapstats/usd

Poloniex BTC swap rates are high (0.2%/day+) probably due to fears about August 1 hard fork.  They aren't saying whether they will give out Bitcoin Cash (though I'd guess they would if it turns into a serious coin).  Anyways, I'm planning on moving my BTC to Bitfinex to make sure I get the Bitcoin Cash.

I think the Bitcoin Cash coin won't amount to much. Unlike Ethereum Classic, this new coin is on the wrong side of a hard fork (Ethereum Classic stayed on the main chain).  So many people will try to sell it on August 1.  This will be partially limited by the lack of exchanges where you can sell.

[nrd525]

I'm lending BTC on Poloniex for up to 3.1%/day.  If I get two days of that before the August 1 hard fork (12:00 pm  on UTC time), I think the 5-6% return will exceed the value of the Bitcoin Cash coins. 

Also, if Bitcoin Cash amounts to anything much - Poloniex might distribute them.  Their official policy is uncommitted, but I could see them becoming more committed if they are worth a lot.

And if people stop borrowing my money at high rates, I can move it to Bitfinex or a local wallet to get the Bitcoin Cash.  Bitfinex is easier, but they might only give you a fraction of your bitcoin cash coins due to the weird way they are handling shorts/longs.

[nrd525]

Hmm, Poloniex has a policy of not distributing BTC to lenders.  Oops.  Oh well I'm hoping that lending will still return more than the value of Bitcoin Cash.  That said, the price of Bitcoin Cash is still stubbornly high.

ViaBTC has it holding at 0.1 BTC
https://www.viabtc.com/quot/realtime?currency=btc&dest=bcc&chart=simple

Fairlay has it at 0.15 BTC (on very low volume)
https://fairlay.com/market/relative-market-price-of-bitcoin-cash-bcc/

Are there any other futures contracts for Bitcoin Cash or places where it is being traded?

If the value is 0.1 BTC, then you have to assume that BTC's price will also drop (after the fork) to approximately 0.9 BTC - so the value is actually 0.09 BTC (or 0.09 * 2800 USD).

But considering that Ethereum Classic is only worth 7% of Ethereum, I was expecting that Bitcoin Cash would do worse as it is on the wrong side of the hard fork.  On the other hand it has a community behind it that is better than the DAO hackers.  And it might be benefiting from ICO-mania.

[nrd525]

BCH is trading on Kraken for around $180.  That Fairlay price (market is closed now) was twice that much!
https://www.kraken.com/charts

[nrd525]

I shouldn't be surprised as the Bitcoin Cash shenanigans/pump, but I am!

0.13 BTC on ViaBtc
https://www.viabtc.com/quot/realtime?currency=btc&dest=bcc&chart=simple

$500 on Bitrex, and $360 on Kraken.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/#markets

So Kraken and ViaBTC are about the same which is interesting.

I think most people don't have their Bitcoin Cash, and so far as I can tell you cannot short it - which makes for easy pumping.

The total BTC + Bitcoin Cash value is $3100 which is a new ATH.

I guess it is very bullish that Bitcoin survived a hard fork with relatively little problems.  So by lowering the overall risk in Bitcoin the price/value has increased a lot.  That is until people decide to start creating hard forks every month (or every week) and push the level of risk back up.  This is especially likely if Bitcoin Cash maintains a strong price (say 0.05 BTC or better) and hash rate.  Though if you're looking for easy money it might be a lot more effective to start an ICO.

[nrd525]

Bitcoin cash pumps to 0.25 BTC on ViaBTC.  Kraken is having trouble staying up. 

Bitcoin Cash price ranges from $300 to $700.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/#markets

I expect it to fall to $150 (aka 0.06 BTC) or less, but who knows!

[nrd525]

Bitcoin cash price is falling to more reasonable levels.  I used Electron Cash to split my Bitcoin and am now ready to market dump all 0.4 BCC on Bitfinex.

Good process, especially if you have a second computer.  Running Electron Cash on the same computer is probably not a good idea.
https://electrum.org/bcc2.txt

[nrd525]

Good news is that Bitcoin keeps going up (though it looks increasingly like a bubble the faster it goes up - $3570 BTC + $330 Bitcoin Cash = $3900!).  I removed my sell orders from the 3000 to 4000 range before they were hit.

Bad news for US residents, as Bitfinex is probably going to stop us from using their website in 90 days including swap lending. I don't think there is any place where a US resident can do USD swap lending.  Poloniex only has lending in crypto.  Quoine has USD lending, but not for US residents.

I might end up investing in the US stock market - which I don't want to because I feel it is overdue for a crash.

[Samarkand]

Good news is that Bitcoin keeps going up (though it looks increasingly like a bubble the faster it goes up - $3570 BTC + $330 Bitcoin Cash = $3900!).  I removed my sell orders from the 3000 to 4000 range before they were hit.

Bad news for US residents, as Bitfinex is probably going to stop us from using their website in 90 days including swap lending. I don't think there is any place where a US resident can do USD swap lending.  Poloniex only has lending in crypto.  Quoine has USD lending, but not for US residents.

I might end up investing in the US stock market - which I don't want to because I feel it is overdue for a crash.

What is stopping you from continuing to use Bitfinex? You can easily create a new account and don´t have
to provide any KYC documents.
I don´t really see a way how they can prevent you from using their service even if you
are based in the US.

Besides, you could always use someone else you trust and lend funds using their BFX account.
BTC as a technology makes settling with your "marionette" really easy.

[nrd525]

It seems like violating the TOS could get me in trouble (the great fear is that they'd confiscate my money, or more likely they would not return it if they got hacked/bankrupt).  Is the only restriction on unverified people that they cannot withdraw or deposit fiat?

So far I found one story of a person getting in trouble, but they also used Tor.  To get their money they had to verify.

[Samarkand]

It seems like violating the TOS could get me in trouble (the great fear is that they'd confiscate my money, or more likely they would not return it if they got hacked/bankrupt).  Is the only restriction on unverified people that they cannot withdraw or deposit fiat?

Your concerns are valid, violating the TOS obviously could have ramifications in case of such an event. Besides, it obviously is at least questionable in terms of ethics.
I just wanted to point out the theoretical possibility.

Yes, that is the only restriction! It is perfectly possible to deposit BTC, sell them and lend out the gained USD in order to take advantage
of the attractive interest rates without ever making a fiat deposit.

[nrd525]

Interesting and some people might go that route.  It's also possible that BFX USD swap rates are going to go very low (eg 5-7% APR). There is definitely a major source or two of new funds which is able to add several million per day without a problem, and if the bull market turns into a bear market the rates will go very low.  Especially if BFX can use its equity to back up any future hacks or thefts.  How much BFX equity did the company retain?