Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)

[52-80 19258]

Whatever you think of Bitcoin itself, MSTR is overvalued relative to its Bitcoin holding by a few times. Shorting a trending stock has uncapped risk, shorting call options is even more dangerous, and buying puts is expensive given its high volatility.

After the holiday exuberance, stocks generally drop or stay flat at the beginning year, going into tax season. 

You can buy a 400/370 put spread expiring Feb 21st for $20. If stock drops to $380 you'll break even. If it goes further down you'll get max profit of $30, for a 1:1.5 risk:reward.  (Completely ignoring the fact if it continues going up you'll lose everything).

Who wants to take a punt on it? 

 

[52-80 19258]

FYI the 'obvious' trade is to simultaneously long bitcoin and short mstr, in which you are betting on a narrowing of the price. But that hasnt worked as mstr kept diverging, and also most brokers wont cross-margin these 2 products so it would eat up lots of buying power in your account.

[52-80 19258]

[Snake Diggity 4627]

One of my favorite scenes in The Big Short is where the guy realizes there’s a mortgage bubble when the strippers are talking about how they’re invested in real estate.  
 

Saturday before the game we were eating at El Chile and my cousin mentioned bitcoin (as part of a larger conversation not really about crypto).  Our waiter, a 20 year old pothead type, comes running over and is like “you guys into bitcoin?  Great investment, I’m all in.”  Dude was frothing at the mouth to talk about this thing he was invested in that he had no fucking clue about how it actually works.  Bubble.  Who knows how long it will take to burst.  But it’s a bubble.

[StassneyHorn 6641]

Did you sleep through late 2017?

[Distinguished Gentleman 2]

1 hour ago, Snake Diggity said:

One of my favorite scenes in The Big Short is where the guy realizes there’s a mortgage bubble when the strippers are talking about how they’re invested in real estate.  
 

Saturday before the game we were eating at El Chile and my cousin mentioned bitcoin (as part of a larger conversation not really about crypto).  Our waiter, a 20 year old pothead type, comes running over and is like “you guys into bitcoin?  Great investment, I’m all in.”  Dude was frothing at the mouth to talk about this thing he was invested in that he had no fucking clue about how it actually works.  Bubble.  Who knows how long it will take to burst.  But it’s a bubble.

There have been signs it was time for a pullback. Cramer said to buy BTC. A good sign personally was P&L posting. 😝 

But if you think with all the tailwinds present that we’re done with this cycle then I’m afraid you’re mistaken. 
 

I actually sold some MSTR on this pullback. Hope it holds for a couple days so i can get in some LEAPS on it. We’ll see. 

 

1 hour ago, StassneyHorn said:

Did you sleep through late 2017?

it hasn’t even gotten crazy yet. 2025 will be a dream. 
 

 

[B00M 6466]

7 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

One of my favorite scenes in The Big Short is where the guy realizes there’s a mortgage bubble when the strippers are talking about how they’re invested in real estate.  
 

Saturday before the game we were eating at El Chile and my cousin mentioned bitcoin (as part of a larger conversation not really about crypto).  Our waiter, a 20 year old pothead type, comes running over and is like “you guys into bitcoin?  Great investment, I’m all in.”  Dude was frothing at the mouth to talk about this thing he was invested in that he had no fucking clue about how it actually works.  Bubble.  Who knows how long it will take to burst.  But it’s a bubble.

I mean if this current cycle follows the others, yes, this is the bubble phase. It may go significantly higher before it deflates to something like $75k or even $50k, but then it will slowly claw its way back up. I’d rather have precious metals as a currency hedge than bitcoin on a cold wallet, but it’s easy enough to buy/sell bitcoin in ETF form with simpler taxes than buying and selling BTC itself. 

[Distinguished Gentleman 2]

32 minutes ago, B00M said:

I’d rather have precious metals as a currency hedge than bitcoin on a cold wallet

Why?

[B00M 6466]

3 hours ago, Distinguished Gentleman said:

Why?

Because one of these things can genuinely go to zero. 

[nycHorn 3042]

Maybe some of your crypto old timers can shed some light here.
I’ve been dabbling since mid 2016 and some of the old exchanges I used aren’t around anymore - the old Binance, Bitrex, etc..places that often used a VPN to access.
How would I go about showing my cost basis now? I tried logging into Binance US but it doesn’t have any of my transactions.

[bernorange 8366]

Quote

...
Over the past two days, Glassnode data shows that short-term holders or those that have held bitcoin for less than 155 days, have sent $7.8 billion or 83,000 BTC to exchanges at a loss over the past two days.

In notional terms, this is the highest number on record. When this cohort tends to send $2 billion or more worth of tokens to exchanges, at a loss, it generally marks a local bottom.
...

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/27/short-term-bitcoin-holders-have-moved-nearly-8-b-worth-of-btc-to-exchanges-signaling-price-bottom-van-straten

 

[bernorange 8366]

@nycHorn- if I'm understanding you correctly, you do not have, and have no way of obtaining, the transaction history for the defunct or unavailable exchanges.  I assume you, at some point, moved whatever BTC balance you held on the exchanges to a cold storage wallet?  If so, you at least have a record of the dates when the BTC arrived in your cold storage wallet and you can look up the price of BTC at those times.  

[nycHorn 3042]

[mention=159]nycHorn[/mention]- if I'm understanding you correctly, you do not have, and have no way of obtaining, the transaction history for the defunct or unavailable exchanges.  I assume you, at some point, moved whatever BTC balance you held on the exchanges to a cold storage wallet?  If so, you at least have a record of the dates when the BTC arrived in your cold storage wallet and you can look up the price of BTC at those times.  

Yes, exactly. It’s on a ledger. I’ve never sold and never had to pay taxes on crypto but I’m now wondering when I do, how do I prove my cost basis.
I moved everything to Coinbase for awhile then maybe 4-5 years ago moved to the cold storage.

[bernorange 8366]

This isn't tax or financial advice, but it seems to me that you can only prove ownership starting from when you took custody of the BTC (when you moved everything to Coinbase I suppose).

[Parliament 14325]

21 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

One of my favorite scenes in The Big Short is where the guy realizes there’s a mortgage bubble when the strippers are talking about how they’re invested in real estate.  
 

Saturday before the game we were eating at El Chile and my cousin mentioned bitcoin (as part of a larger conversation not really about crypto).  Our waiter, a 20 year old pothead type, comes running over and is like “you guys into bitcoin?  Great investment, I’m all in.”  Dude was frothing at the mouth to talk about this thing he was invested in that he had no fucking clue about how it actually works.  Bubble.  Who knows how long it will take to burst.  But it’s a bubble.

Back on June of 20…23?  (six months before FTX blew up) my mother (retired banker) called me.  

Mom: “I was watching the Today Show and they were talking about this “crypto…currency.”  What is it?

Me: “It’s a prop bet between strangers, all logged on a computer server somewhere.”

Mom: “…so it’s all bullshit.”

Me: “Yes”

Mom:  “Good talk.”

Pretty sure I saved my inheritance with that.

Edited 6 hours ago by Parliament

[Distinguished Gentleman 2]

3 hours ago, nycHorn said:

Maybe some of your crypto old timers can shed some light here.
I’ve been dabbling since mid 2016 and some of the old exchanges I used aren’t around anymore - the old Binance, Bitrex, etc..places that often used a VPN to access.
How would I go about showing my cost basis now? I tried logging into Binance US but it doesn’t have any of my transactions.

I’m not sure of the answer here, but I bet it’s not uncommon. If you’re a twitter user it seems like that’s something searchable or you could ask a crypto tax person directly and get a general response. 

[Distinguished Gentleman 2]

But if you bought in 2016 then it’s almost all cap gains anyway. 
 

here you go 
 

Try @cryptotaxgirl 

Edited 4 hours ago by Distinguished Gentleman

[52-80 19258]

4 hours ago, nycHorn said:

How would I go about showing my cost basis now? I tried logging into Binance US but it doesn’t have any of my transactions.

Non-pro tip: if you dont know the cost basis, neither will the IRS

[nycHorn 3042]

Non-pro tip: if you dont know the cost basis, neither will the IRS

[Nice Guy Eddie 13523]

7 hours ago, nycHorn said:

Maybe some of your crypto old timers can shed some light here.
I’ve been dabbling since mid 2016 and some of the old exchanges I used aren’t around anymore - the old Binance, Bitrex, etc..places that often used a VPN to access.
How would I go about showing my cost basis now? I tried logging into Binance US but it doesn’t have any of my transactions.

Many of those sites no longer allow US users to log onto their accounts. And the account may not longer exist but you can attempt to log on. At one point, they advised customers to download reports but that was years ago.

If you know the date that you purchased or roughly the month, you should be able to get a decent idea about the cost on coinmarketcap.