Is anyone else starting to become a bit excited?

bfa1509

I've noticed in recent weeks (also with the GME scandal) that heads of different banks or "investment watchdogs" have been showing concern for us small time investors by coming out with this outrageous line: "We need to remind people that if you invest in X, you may lose all your money"

Clear scaremongering from those who claim to put our best interests first. Just goes to show how fearful they are of the future of investing/currencies.

Stormington

I'd rather not get into the debate on whether PFOF is right, wrong, or creates conflicts of interest as I don't think that's overly relevant here. Also, not sure of the relevance of the fine (which btw I think was deserved), as Robinhood resolved this in 2017, which is reflected in the relatively minor fine.

With regards PFOF I will quote Ken Griffin:

Ken Griffin 2004: "Citadel Group urges the Commission to ban payment for order flow. This practice distorts order routing decisions, is anti-competitive, and creates an obvious and substantial conflict of interest between broker-dealers and their customers. "
https://www.sec.gov/rules/concept/s70704/citadel04132004.pdf
Page 4 part B.

Ken Griffin 2021: "PFOF has been an important source of innovation in the industry"
People are free to change their mind when presented with new information and profit margins. Not that Mr Griffin was short of money prior to Citadel.

The RH fine is very relevant - RH have demonstrated unethical/illegal behaviour in the past. That habit formed a pattern that will tend to repeat over time: the SEC had suspicions they had been acting improperly post-fine and pre-2021 hence their investigation. (Boeing are another example of this). There may not be many people surprised if more information about illegal actions taken at RH/Citadel come to light.

*Professional in that it's unclear, it could be institutions, HFTS, crews of day traders who don't access markets through traditional retail platforms etc.

Big players were piling in when they smelled blood/algos picked it up. Realistically only they would have had enough capital to hit multiple tickers at once (darkpools, otc deals etc).

The issue is that retail traders are receiving/sharing the flack for what RH and the connected parties did as big players piled on. As a group retail are being labelled as unsophisticated and dangerous and will need to be saved from themselves.

The PDT rule was introduced following the dotcom crash in 2001 ostensibly to protect retail traders. The net effect was to price the average trader out of the market by imposing the 25k requirement for margin when median household savings in the US at the time were 4k and average 12k.

Legislation introduced on a basis of protecting traders in today's climate may follow a similar path (further margin requirements possibly), and will eventually encompass crypto trading too as more money moves there. India and Nigeria are officially blocking trades now.

I hate to burst any bubbles so hope that taking some profits and moving it to bank accounts on the way is a part of the plan for readers here.

Mellor

bfa1509 wrote: »

I've noticed in recent weeks (also with the GME scandal) that heads of different banks or "investment watchdogs" have been showing concern for us small time investors by coming out with this outrageous line: "We need to remind people that if you invest in X, you may lose all your money"

Clear scaremongering from those who claim to put our best interests first. Just goes to show how fearful they are of the future of investing/currencies.

I think you are misunderstanding there.
You buy 50k of crypto or any investment. You could lose your entire 50k, obviously. Everyone should know that. Only invest what you can lose.

But GME and similar feature leveraged margin calls. You invest 50K in margin calls. You could end up losing (and therefore owing) far more than your investment.
The 50k deposit that you can afford to lose turns into a debt of $250k and you lose your house.
People are idiots and need some level of protection from that.

TheMilkyPirate

Looking to buy NXS. It's on binance but can I only buy certain coins with certain other coins? Seems to only be the option to buy it with BTC

el diablo

TheMilkyPirate wrote: »

Looking to buy NXS. It's on binance but can I only buy certain coins with certain other coins? Seems to only be the option to buy it with BTC

Yep, the more obscure the crypto, the fewer trading pairs. There's an option on Binance to swap between cryptos and stable coins (eg. USDT to BTC etc).

Mellor

BrandonBay86 wrote: »

Should they not have halted both buys and sells, rather than just buys?

How could they halt one and not the other.

If there is a seller, there much by a buyer.

donnaille wrote: »

They were forced to halt trading, or post margin. Afaik they halted all trading, but I’d be genuinely interested if you have something showing that it was only ‘buys’ halted?

This is correct.
They halted the opening of new option positions. But they allowed people with current open positions to close then. Both buy/sell.

However, due to the fact GME was heavily shorted. There open positions were disproportionately call options. Hence, it was mostly sells executed after the halt.

TheMilkyPirate wrote: »

Revolut definitely only halted buys as I could sell but couldn't buy for a few hours. Can't speak for Robin hood but as a far as I know that was the same

If you were able to sell then somebody was able to buy it. ie somebody who needs to buy the stock to close his position.

rapul

Bnb is flying

Ronan|Raven

rapul wrote: »

Bnb is flying

250USD?!


:eek:
Im glad I didnt sell a good few for 20 quid last year! :D

MuddyDog

Why is BnB flying? I have 200 euros worth at 50ish. Don't fully understand why it's climbed so quick this week.

olestoepoke

India and Nigeria passing laws to ban the ownership of cryptocurrencies, not sure it is enforceable. The Indian govt is getting ready for the launch of its own sovereign digital currency. Seems like some governments are getting nervous. Am I right in saying the 2017 crash was partly due to China banning BTC? Could this affect the price?https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-bytes/investors-may-take-to-p2p-transfer-methods-in-case-of-india-crypto-ban/articleshow/81020016.cms

donnaille

Stormington wrote: »

With regards PFOF I will quote Ken Griffin:

Ken Griffin 2004: "Citadel Group urges the Commission to ban payment for order flow. This practice distorts order routing decisions, is anti-competitive, and creates an obvious and substantial conflict of interest between broker-dealers and their customers. "
https://www.sec.gov/rules/concept/s70704/citadel04132004.pdf
Page 4 part B.

Ken Griffin 2021: "PFOF has been an important source of innovation in the industry"
People are free to change their mind when presented with new information and profit margins. Not that Mr Griffin was short of money prior to Citadel.

This originated from Zero Hedge I believe, at least that's where i saw it yesterday. PFOF isn't really the issue here, hence my reason for trying to avoid its merits, or otherwise. Financial markets of 2004 and 2021 are incomparable w.r.t protections to investors. The tweet from Zero Hedge offers nothing beyond trying to cause outrage and invoke the conspiracy theories. PFOF has changed and opinions change. Put it this way, who would suffer the most from PFOF being banned, I can tell you it won't be Citadel.

Stormington wrote: »

The RH fine is very relevant - RH have demonstrated unethical/illegal behaviour in the past. That habit formed a pattern that will tend to repeat over time: the SEC had suspicions they had been acting improperly post-fine and pre-2021 hence their investigation. (Boeing are another example of this). There may not be many people surprised if more information about illegal actions taken at RH/Citadel come to light.

That's one narrative, there's another where Robinhood didn't want to be seen to support a very public pump and dump, I don't really buy that either if I'm honest. Robinhood simply couldn't post margin and had to restrict trading.

Stormington wrote: »

The issue is that retail traders are receiving/sharing the flack for what RH and the connected parties did as big players piled on. As a group retail are being labelled as unsophisticated and dangerous and will need to be saved from themselves.

The PDT rule was introduced following the dotcom crash in 2001 ostensibly to protect retail traders. The net effect was to price the average trader out of the market by imposing the 25k requirement for margin when median household savings in the US at the time were 4k and average 12k.

Legislation introduced on a basis of protecting traders in today's climate may follow a similar path (further margin requirements possibly), and will eventually encompass crypto trading too as more money moves there. India and Nigeria are officially blocking trades now.

I hate to burst any bubbles so hope that taking some profits and moving it to bank accounts on the way is a part of the plan for readers here.

Some deserved flak imo, this was a very public pump and dump. As I mentioned Robinhood traders were net sellers in the run up to this, this wasn't a case of the little guys against Wall Street for many retail traders. The early pumpers got out and left other misfortunates holding the bag.

The whole episode could end PFOF and short-selling, but that has far wider implications on the market than most understand.

I do think Robinhood need to take some flak too, there's a responsibility that needs to be taken on when trying to democratise financial services - is gamification of trading in a bull market and offering more complex products to all retail investors a good thing? Your view might be that it is, and that investors should make their own choices, I think the GME/WSB saga says otherwise. I can't help but feel genuine sympathy for those that have put their net worth into a few pumped stocks when the next bear market appears.

mdmix

MuddyDog wrote: »

Why is BnB flying? I have 200 euros worth at 50ish. Don't fully understand why it's climbed so quick this week.

eth fees are too high for newcomers. ada, dot and now BnB benifiting as a result. Pancake swap on Binance smart chain is almost as big as uniswap in daily volume.

I see sheep

I've just cashed out (will leave it in the exchange for now might buy back if there's a dip)
Good luck to everyone

Irish_rat

MuddyDog wrote: »

Why is BnB flying? I have 200 euros worth at 50ish. Don't fully understand why it's climbed so quick this week.

Total value locked on binance smart chain is growing at a rapid rate. This is a first for any chain outside eth.

However it is not the real solution, the whole point of crypto is to be fully decentralised. Hopefully dot, ada and others catch up.

makeorbrake

olestoepoke wrote: »

India and Nigeria passing laws to ban the ownership of cryptocurrencies, not sure it is enforceable. The Indian govt is getting ready for the launch of its own sovereign digital currency. Seems like some governments are getting nervous. Am I right in saying the 2017 crash was partly due to China banning BTC? Could this affect the price?https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-bytes/investors-may-take-to-p2p-transfer-methods-in-case-of-india-crypto-ban/articleshow/81020016.cms

Nigerian Senator Sani Musa: "Bitcoin has made our currency almost useless or valueless."

@Senator Musa: No, you have been running a shítcoin! You've also been running insane capital controls that have caused no end of problems for your citizens (and for Nigerian expats). 2nd world countries - run your shítcoins at least a bit more responsibly and maybe your citizens won't start to use bitcoin instead.

The Nigerians won't be able to enforce that ban. Meanwhile, the Indians suggested that their sovereign digital currency would replace any need for bitcoin - which is ludicrous.

This sort of stuff could very much affect anyone speculating on the price but it probably needs to be the US or Europe to tank it. Banning bitcoin is likely to be politically unpopular in the US - and that scenario increases as we see more adoption. There's quite a collection of crypto-enlightened US politicians around these days (People like Cynthia Lumnis, Patrick McHenry, etc.), an enlightened SEC commissioner (Hester Pierce) and SEC head (Gary Gensler).
I think it's just as well that btc hit problems re. means of exchange (for right now) as they're more worried about a direct threat to currency use whereas they don't care if btc replaces gold.
I think it was the introduction of bitcoin futures that brought down the last btc surge rather than the China ban - although remember that it probably needed to come down anyway as it had become irrational.

Mucashinto

That old expression comes to mind "what Nigeria does today, the world does tomorrow"

Wall St brokers often won't make a move until they know which position Nigeria is taking etc.

TheMilkyPirate

el diablo wrote: »

Yep, the more obscure the crypto, the fewer trading pairs. There's an option on Binance to swap between cryptos and stable coins (eg. USDT to BTC etc).

Thanks so I'll have to buy USDT first swap to BTC and then buy NXS with that?

makeorbrake

TheMilkyPirate wrote: »

Thanks so I'll have to buy USDT first swap to BTC and then but NXS with that?

Why buy USDT first? Can't you buy BTC first - and then jump into NXS with that?

mdmix

mdmix wrote: »

eth fees are too high for newcomers. ada, dot and now BnB benifiting as a result. Pancake swap on Binance smart chain is almost as big as uniswap in daily volume.

I swear I've been following crypto for years but I have no idea what that second sentence means

Bob24

Deleted User wrote: »

I swear I've been following crypto for years but I have no idea what that second sentence means

Trivia of the day:

If I say "Make sure you keep you sushi in cold storage", am I talking to a restaurant owner or to a crypto investor? :-)

BrandonBay86

Mellor wrote: »

How could they halt one and not the other.

If there is a seller, there much by a buyer.


This is correct.
They halted the opening of new option positions. But they allowed people with current open positions to close then. Both buy/sell.

However, due to the fact GME was heavily shorted. There open positions were disproportionately call options. Hence, it was mostly sells executed after the halt.


If you were able to sell then somebody was able to buy it. ie somebody who needs to buy the stock to close his position.

Not every exchange stopped the buyers. Robinhood et al who did stop the buying should have stopped the selling. By dropping the buy side volume there was an increase in the buyer/seller ratio, hence the price started to dump.

Dohnjoe

MuddyDog wrote: »

Why is BnB flying? I have 200 euros worth at 50ish. Don't fully understand why it's climbed so quick this week.

Biggest exchange. The coin actually does something (fees). BNB are burned periodically. A lot of products on the exchange net decent returns (launchpad, launchpool, earn, flexi-savings, locked savings, etc) then there's the Binance Smartchain which can grab some phenomenal returns (without the risk of having to put it onto some shady platform). Plus I think the coin was considered 'undervalued' when compared to the other big movers.

Mellor

BrandonBay86 wrote: »

Not every exchange stopped the buyers. Robinhood et al who did stop the buying should have stopped the selling. By dropping the buy side volume there was an increase in the buyer/seller ratio, hence the price started to dump.

Nope.
Robinhood stopped trading entirely, ie they stopped both buy and sell orders.
Options are not the same as buy/sell.

we restricted transactions for certain securities to position closing only. You can see the latest here. We also raised margin requirements for certain securities.

The hedge funds shorted the stock with options. They weren’t trying to sell GME stock.

Irish_rat

The amount I have in crypto is small in comparison to others.

What amount of money making out of this would you consider to ditch the day job?

olestoepoke

Mucashinto wrote: »

That old expression comes to mind "what Nigeria does today, the world does tomorrow"

Wall St brokers often won't make a move until they know which position Nigeria is taking etc.

Surprisingly Nigeria tops the list when it comes to countries that use BTC to trade

BrandonBay86

Mellor wrote: »

Nope.
Robinhood stopped trading entirely, ie they stopped both buy and sell orders.
Options are not the same as buy/sell.



The hedge funds shorted the stock with options. They weren’t trying to sell GME stock.

Nope.
It wasn’t just options, they dropped the ability to spot buy actual stonks too. They did this by removing the $GME ticker from the search function entirely. They changed this back within a day for most users

Mellor

BrandonBay86 wrote: »

Nope.
It wasn’t just options,

What wasn’t just options?
It’s not really clear if you understood what I said.

they dropped the ability to spot buy actual stonks too.

Yes. I literally said (twice) they stopped trading.
That means you couldn’t buy.
It also meant you couldn’t sell stocks. The quote above is from RH acknowledging that.

That doesn’t prevent exercising options. Include margin calls.

seannash

Irish_rat wrote: »

The amount I have in crypto is small in comparison to others.

What amount of money making out of this would you consider to ditch the day job?

Depends on current lifestyle and age. Someone, late 20s, earning 100K a year isn't going to ditch it because they've made 500k in crypto.

BrandonBay86

Mellor wrote: »

What wasn’t just options?
It’s not really clear if you understood what I said.


Yes. I literally said (twice) they stopped trading.
That means you couldn’t buy.
It also meant you couldn’t sell stocks. The quote above is from RH acknowledging that.

That doesn’t prevent exercising options. Include margin calls.

You could sell any open position you had, they didn’t stop that.

BrandonBay86

Irish_rat wrote: »

The amount I have in crypto is small in comparison to others.

What amount of money making out of this would you consider to ditch the day job?

6x annual salary right now if you believe bitcoin is going to hit $288k s2fx is the number for me.