Beany Babies. Bitcoin is the Beany Babies of fiat currencies.

[5.56NATO]

One Bank Believes It Found The Identity Of Who Is "Propping Up The Bitcoin Market"
Back in May when the Chinese domination over Bitcoin was ending, we predicted that it would shift over to Japan, specifically, we said that "just as the Chinese bubble frenzy in bitcoin is fading, it may be replaced with a new one, in which thousands of Mrs. Watanabe traders shift their attention away from the FX market and toward digital currencies" and added that "If the transition is seamless, there is no telling just how far this particular bubble can grow."

Judging by the exponential price surge in bitcoin in the subsequent period, we were clearly right on the latter, and now, according to a new analysis, we were also right on the former, because as Deutsche Bank reveals in a new report by Masao Muraki, "Japanese men in their 30s and 40s who are engaged in leveraged FX trading (or who used to trade but have stopped) are driving the cryptocurrency market" and who according to DB, happen to be more or less idiots, arguably because for the time being they are outperforming every other asset class... in history, to wit: "Japanese retail investors are less financially literate than their US peers across all age groups. Compared to the US, financial literacy is particularly poor among people 35-54 years of age. The poor literacy of Japanese retail investors also stands out beside UK and German investors."

Ah yes, by contrast the financial literacy of the world's central-planners is off the charts. Look where that got us...

In any case, and without further ado, please meet the (rather boring) people who are propping up the Bitcoin market, at least according to Deutsche Bank.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-1...bitcoin-market

[5.56NATO]

Goldman Sets 100% Margin Requirement On "Some" Bitcoin Futures trades
Goldman Sachs has become the latest brokerage to raise its margin requirements for clients who wish to trade the new bitcoin futures launched by the CBOE late Sunday, following in the footsteps of Interactive Brokers, which initially prohibited clients from taking a short position in the futures contracts and later demanded more than a double margin in case a short leads to a greater than 100% loss.

Not surprisingly, the Vampire Squid is taking a similarly cautious approach, announcing that it will ask some of its clients to put up 100% margin on their bitcoin futures positions if they wish to clear them with the bank, suggesting the bank would be covered in case of a full loss on the underlying.

Of course, by "some", the bank probably means clients who are seeking to short the digital currency - a sign that the bank is afraid it could be left on the hook for customers' losses if there's a vicious "Bitcoin Volkswagen" which wipes out short positions. By demanding full margin, Goldman's clients may as well be trading the underlying as there is zero leverage on the associated futures position; effectively, the only benefit from doing such a trade is giving Goldman the "privilege" of holding the bitcoin and keeping it safe from hackers' prying hands.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-1...itcoin-futures

What is 'Short Selling'
Short selling is the sale of a security that is not owned by the seller, or that the seller has borrowed. Short selling is motivated by the belief that a security's price will decline, enabling it to be bought back at a lower price to make a profit. Short selling may be prompted by speculation, or by the desire to hedge the downside risk of a long position in the same security or a related one. Since the risk of loss on a short sale is theoretically infinite, short selling should only be used by experienced traders who are familiar with its risks.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shortselling.asp




So they expect btc to crash hence the mandatory 100 percent cover on short positions, likely to be replaced by some other electronic currency that is similarly based on electrons and nothing else that will also crash. However, inflation loving central banks will likely move to digital currency themselves due the absolute control it will have over people and governments alike, also because they can be inflated to infinity, or deleted with the press of the enter key.

[LAGC]

Biggest. Bubble. Evah.

All those people shorting are going to be wiped out as well, as the currency continues to wildly fluctuate up and down before it finally settles crashing back down below $500.

[alismith]

All this hoopla over something that has a realistic value of 0.

[l921428x]

Pok'e man or however it was spelled.

[raxar]

All this hoopla over something that has a realistic value of 0.

How much do you think the ones and zeros that make up your bank account are worth? How much is the money in your wallet worth?

The exact same thing that makes hard currency valuable, the exact same thing that makes your bank account valuable, is what makes bitcoin valuable, mutual agreement between people that it's valuable.

[Schuetzenman]

I would sooner put rabid weasel in my pants than put money into any crypto currency. They use graphics cards to do math to create or mine these faux currencies. It's like saying the answer to 2+2 is money.