Hacker News Reader

Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Legitimately asking: Can you even short Bitcoin? At least safely.

Shorts as a concept are designed around legally binding contracts. If you fail to pay out on a short you sell, they'll sue you and you'll be suspended in the markets. How would that work on something like Bitcoin?

View on HN

You can short Bitcoin via the futures markets launched in December by CME and CBOE. https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/10/cme-bitcoin-future...

You can open a short futures position in /XBT (1 btc contract) or /BTC (5 btc contract), but that is obviously not safe, and the margin requirements to even enter are insanely large. And they don’t offer options, so there really is no way to limit your risk.

I've shorted BTC a couple of times in an app (EU regulated) that allows CFD trading. Trading gets halted for a couple of seconds multiple times a minute when the market is very volatile though, so safely is a big word.

Two options off the top of my head:

1/ Use the CBOE or CME futures for this. Just need to signup with a broker and sell a contract. 2/ Borrow BTC frome a holder. Agree to pay some interest. Then sell that BTC.

Yes you can, without ever touching a bitcoin. CBOE offers cash settled bitcoin futures.

CBOE futures launched Dec 10 last year though, so they have only recently been an option.

I wonder how people trading those futures see the bitcoin market (my assumption is that many of them will be much more sophisticated than the typical "crypto" trader).

You can now with the futures XBT

Reply on news.ycombinator.com