Central banks, It is in their interest to maintain control over a country’s currency and will do anything they can to do so
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I agree with you, Bitcoin will survive, but will it grow the way it has? I doubt it, but I would love to see bitcoin proving me wrong and grow in an unprecedented manner. Let’s see what the future holds
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Good that you haven’t invested in cryptos or else you would have also been stuck in the vicious cycles of buying the dip haha
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BTC is basically a risk on asset that moves like a 5-10x leveraged Nasdaq ETF. It exploded from 2009 to 2021 with cheap money globally <3%, fed expanding their balance sheet via QE from <800M to 5 trillion and >6 trillion in stimulous spending out the US gov (>12 trillion via G7 governments).
Without the above, crypto will likely be range bound for quite some time.
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The entire offshore trading world is heavily reliant on crypto for money transfer… which is a huge risk!
I’ve taken steps over the last 1 1/2 years to put some of my eggs in other baskets. I trade FX, interest rate & indices futures @ AMP domestically (150-250:1 leverage for day trading). I have also secured several online prop firm accounts with multiple companies.
If worse comes to worst and crypto payments get shutdown to non disclosed wallets due to regulation… I’m fully prepared to survive without dealing with the subpar US FX broker options currently available.
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There is always a possibility of this happening at any time.
Supposed $477 million FTX ‘hack’ was actually a Bahamian government asset seizure
The transfer of $477 million of crypto out FTX accounts last weekend raised worries of theft, but is part of a fight over control of the exchange’s bankruptcy.
Remember that hack of nearly half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency from bankrupt FTX last weekend? Turns out it was actually a government asset seizure.
The Securities Commission of the Bahamas has now acknowledged that it was behind the removal of $477 million in crypto assets from the bankrupt exchange on Nov. 12.
“The Securities Commission of the Bahamas, in the exercise of its powers as regulator acting under the authority of an order made by the Supreme Court of the Bahamas, took the action of directing the transfer of all the digital assets of FTX Digital Markets Ltd. to a digital wallet controlled by the commission, for safekeeping,” the agency said in a statement.
The transfer occurred the day after FTX had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware and immediately sparked concerns of a major hack. The company announced that day that “unauthorized access to certain assets has occurred” and that they were coordinating with law enforcement on the matter.”
On Thursday, the U.S.-based bankruptcy administrators led by John Ray, III, who have taken control of FTX, said in court filings that they had “credible evidence” that officials in the Bahamas had directed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to access FTX’s systems after the Chapter 11 filing, “for the purpose of obtaining digital assets of the debtors.”
The seizure of assets came amid an emerging fight for control over the direction of the bankruptcy proceeding, with officials in the Bahamas filing a separate Chapter 15 bankruptcy petition in federal court in New York on Nov. 15.
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The whole issue here was caused by poor business sense and management. This will certainly give regulators/governments further-cause to try to limit and/or prohibit freedoms and access of cryptocurrency.
The problem with cryptocurrency, is that it is difficult to back your investments with other cryptocurrency, and using fiat kind of defeats the purpose. Using stable coins is little different that using fiat. Gold and other tangible/non-digital assets are probably not good, either. Perhaps an investment foundation that uses a combination is the best approach. Not all options are as liquid as others, though. But any of the above is probably better than what Sam Bankman-Fried opted for.
If any lesson can be gleaned from this, from the perspective of the average investor, aside from not keeping all of your eggs in one basket, is to avoid keeping the bulk of your financial assets on any one exchange or any other place that can block, freeze or confiscate them.
This lesson holds true for brokers and prop firms, too; always pull out your funds regularly. Very basic lesson, but not something that you want to learn the hard way.
I was never comfortable with leaving funds on crypto exchanges. Not only because they are massive targets for cyber-theft, but because the exchange controls the wallet and can easily block/freeze access (or be ordered to do so).
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Couple of remarks on a Trusted broker still accepting U.S. traders – FX GLORY and WITHDRAWALS:
If you operate an individual account and have your crypto options lined up, you can probably get money out via cryptos and pay FXGlory only $20 in fees. However, if you have triggered some obscure ‘concern’ you may find some amount up to 10% of your withdrawal has been taken by them as additional fees. By the way, all such decisions are final – User Agreement even states no third parties will be called upon ever (meaning by you) in these decisions.
Now if you operate a company (corporate) account, you may find it very difficult to find a crypto provider who will open an account for you to facilitate the withdrawal. In fact you may not find any.
Then your only option – your ONLY option – as a U.S. trader whether individual or corporate is to withdraw via PayPal (if you have an account set up – otherwise you can probably do so) and pay FX Glory 9% of the withdrawal for the privilege.
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METHOS wrote:
The whole issue here was caused by poor business sense and management. This will certainly give regulators/governments further-cause to try to limit and/or prohibit freedoms and access of cryptocurrency.
I don’t know whom the Bahamians grabbed the boodle for.
I do know that the cause wasn’t ignorance or some other lack or ‘error.’ SBF was in a loop between sovereign transfers and kickbacks. He got his, they got theirs.
They are not at all concerned that you may not have gotten yours. They have a little chuckle about it and move on.
Of course will be used as probable cause to brand honest traders/holders with the mark they themselves deserve. That’s the reverse-blame game so popular with the big criminals these days.
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-Not discounting what you are saying. But to say that this was not the result of poor business decisions seems a little short-sighted.
Who knows, Im thinking when it was offered on the CME back in 2017 they would do everything in their power to kill.
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Absolutely the correct move. I began acquiring prop accounts over 2 years ago. I am diversified through several as well. It certainly beats the US broker options without the risk of the offshore brokers. I have leverage, all of the instruments I want/need and have 10x the capital I had when trading personal accounts.
I’m going to need to look into AMP though, I had no idea that type of leverage was available for day trading the indices.
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-Not discounting what you are saying. But to say that this was not the result of poor business decisions seems a little short-sighted."
Let me recommend to your attention the following individuals; I’m not going to specify their exact tie-in with the FTX operation:
Caroline Ellison, SBF’s girlfriend running Alameda Research
Glenn Ellison, her father, head of MIT’s economics department
Gary Gensler, close friend working with Glenn and SBF on crypto regulation for some time
Joseph Bankman, SBF’s father, Stanford professor of banking law
Barbara Fried, SBF’s mother, one of the top major US democrat party organizers and fundraisers.
A country beginning with the letter “U.”
That’s as much as I want to say, probably more than I should.
From there you can dig in and see whether (as they love to say in their defense) “mistakes were made.”
I’ll leave it there.
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The eyebrow raising connections are getting noticed by everyone.
The COVID/Crypto Connection: The Grim Saga Of FTX & Sam Bankman-Fried | ZeroHedge
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Perhaps you misunderstood my point. But that is okay.
You should definitely check out futures! It’s where the liquidity is for US indices… 30 Dow30 mini (150 MFF contracts), 40 Nasdaq mini (800 MFF contracts) & 150 S&P emini (7500 MFF contracts) are daily occurrences in the time of sales data going only 2-3 price levels deep in the order book. It’s only 20-25:1 overnight. However, if you stick to day trading, it’s 150-250:1 depending on the market.
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I hope I didn’t METHOS but please explain. I’m someone who wants to understand. Thanks mate.
This.
It’s why I’ve been seeking offshores who offer other means of funding & withdrawal - particularly withdrawal!
A Winklevoss-run crypto operation has frozen $700 million in client withdrawals as it becomes ensnared in the FTX disaster
Gemini, a cryptocurrency platform run by the Winklevoss brothers, halted client withdrawals for its Earn progam.
The Gemini Earn program lets users lend their crypto to institutional borrowers.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fallout-sam-bankman-frieds-ftx-153500948.html
Simply, that I understand that there may have been something shady going on, as well as lacking regulation etc… But I was specifically pointing out the bad business decisions that resulted in this mess and perhaps what better approaches could have been used.
When you have your own, invented token being used as your investment foundation, this inevitably creates concerns regarding leverage and solvency.
As I say, I am not discounting what you are saying. But to disagree and say that this had nothing to do with lack of foresight or poor business choices is like me saying to you that this had nothing to do with anything shady.
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