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Fly

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Posts posted by Fly

  1.  

    I have some questions for anyone with any insight into how public companies securely hold Bitcoin on their balances sheet.

     

    1) How do they secure the BTC from theft, both internal and external, and what tools to they have to detect attempts?

     

    2) How is BTC handled in an audit? How do auditors confirm the claimed amount is securely held, and not stolen or fraudulent?

     

    My guess would be they're using custody services from either a custodial bank or an established crypto exchange. How do those counterparties secure it from theft? I'm sure it varies, but probably have measures around it just like they would cash, or physical gold, or securities.

     

    How can it be audited? The third party custodian should be able to report the value at any given time OR could allow auditors read access to the wallet in which the BTC is stored.

     

    I believe Coinbase provides the custody service for MSTR and TSLA. Something to consider when they eventually have their direct listing IPO

  2.  

    Grantham is basing his views on crazy investor behaviour which I agree suggests we are closer to 2000 than 1998.

     

    Problem is he underestimates the ability of the Fed and the government to keep this going. Zero interest rates were bad enough with their TINA implication and encouragement of the use of leverage and financial engineering by companies (e.g. share buybacks). But now we have the government giving unlimited handouts to people who really don't need the money and have figured out they can make handsome returns by investing it in the stock market. And so long as the virus lingers around there are limited options for spending so a higher saving rate should continue to support higher share prices.

     

    Ultimately Grantham's argument is that economic forces result in an eventual reversion to mean. But we are no longer in a free market economy.

     

    Agree with this. I mean, how far of a jump are we from UBI becoming reality?

  3. I wouldn’t dare go to cash but if you look back at 2021 say in 5 years, and someone said what were the signs (insert EV/CRYPTO/SPAC play), it was pretty obvious

     

    That's what I struggle with. Sure, I will accept we are in a bubble but what do you do with that assumption? Invest in value assets in hopes they don't crash as bad when the bubble pops? Or go hard and play the EV/Crypto/SPAC roulette while it's still hot in an attempt to juice gains before the crash?

  4. I would suggest that isn't serving any actual purpose.

     

    IBKR chairman on CNBC today:

     

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/interactive-brokers-restricted-gamestop-trading-to-protect-the-market-says-chairman-peterffy.html

     

    He is very worried about a broker or clearinghouse failure. He doesn't mention which counter-party he is worried about, but RH says they are restricting long stock purchases due to CAPITAL requirements. This suggests RH is thinly capitalized. I know RH investors aren't sophisticated enough to understand this, but if I was sitting on $20M paper gains at RH, I'd be very worried about the viability of my broker.

     

    Disclosure: long IBKR

     

    Edit to add: When you say that IBKR should permit bear call spreads, you are saying that IBKR should accept the counter-party risk on both legs of that trade. The trade might be low-risk for you, but very high risk for IBKR.

     

    Robinhood is not a trade executor, how are their paper gains in any danger? Unless you mean the service itself goes dark preventing them from selling their shares before the bubble pops....

     

    That's happened several times in the recent past as well (RH shut down and nobody can access their account for the day).

  5. Too early to tell, but the most legit project at the moment is ESD. Incentives are being modified for a v2 to come out soon.

     

    No one will care about Tethers or any stable coin when the market finally decides to back an algorithmic stable coin.

     

     

    I do think this is the future, but have just glanced briefly at the algo stablecoins. Any recs for leaders so far?

     

    Yes, ESDv2 and Frax were two I had been most interested in

  6. No one will care about Tethers or any stable coin when the market finally decides to back an algorithmic stable coin.

     

     

    I do think this is the future, but have just glanced briefly at the algo stablecoins. Any recs for leaders so far?

  7.  

    I don't think this is new info. Tether was the big concern in 2018 too.  It doesn't change my long term opinion of BTC, although it could create a good buying opportunity if it crashes the crypto markets.

     

    Anyone know if there is a good way to short USDT?

     

    Good? No, but Kraken has a USDT/USD pair with 2x leverage. I think this Tether stuff is way overblown. Yes, they are corrupt and will likely get shutdown but it won't be some big black swan event where BTC drops massively. Hell, we've been hearing this Tether story for years now. Nobody should be surprised when it actually happens.

  8. Went back some pages, but did not find anything about the theory that Tether printed without USD backing are being used to manipulate the price of BTC up. There may be something, however, as this was already being discussed out there a few months ago.

    In any case, if this is true, and regulation was to stop the proliferation of tether (and/or similar stable coins), the price of bitcoin could be negatively impacted, so the argument goes.

     

    What do you make of it?

     

    https://medium.com/texas-mccombs/tether-connection-puts-bitcoin-at-risk-a6d332784f98

     

    https://coingeek.com/tether-printing-presses-in-overdrive-as-regulators-watch-closely/

     

    If you owned a big pile of USDT and Tether corporation was shut down tomorrow what would you do with your USDT? Probably trade it for the most liquid asset ASAP. BTC/USDT pairings would skyrocket and would likely cause a short term burst in BTC/USD pairs as well, then decouple and see a normal BTC/USD with USDT turning into just another shitcoin.

     

    Most reputable exchanges dont even use USDT any longer, and it is only the shady places that use it for wash trading:

     

    https://www.viewbase.com/coin/tether

  9. We're facing this same question currently with two little ones about to start their school careers. Our main driver towards private school is that most districts in this area (Mass) are in hybrid or full remote "school" which isn't satisfactory for us. We'll likely end up sending them to Catholic school for K-8 and then re-evaluate for keeping them in for HS, or make a push for one of the more prestigious schools in the area.

     

    The fact that public teachers unions are pushing this remote model of school is troubling, and sadly hurts those who need school the most. I am concerned that this will wind up becoming a regular occurrence, with hybrid/remote school from Nov-March each year to avoid cold/flu seasons.

     

    So basically you want teachers to die for the privilege of teaching your kid?

     

    Yes.

     

    If there is anything in this world worth dying for it is the education and betterment of the next generation, but you're being hyperbolic with asking teachers to die to educate kids. So let's move on.

     

    Are 70yr old grocery store workers any less important? How about that high-risk instacart driver bringing you your groceries so that you can stay home and collect social credits by posting your virtues on twitter? Who are we really trying to protect here? The wealthy? Or those truly at risk of dying?

  10. We're facing this same question currently with two little ones about to start their school careers. Our main driver towards private school is that most districts in this area (Mass) are in hybrid or full remote "school" which isn't satisfactory for us. We'll likely end up sending them to Catholic school for K-8 and then re-evaluate for keeping them in for HS, or make a push for one of the more prestigious schools in the area.

     

    The fact that public teachers unions are pushing this remote model of school is troubling, and sadly hurts those who need school the most. I am concerned that this will wind up becoming a regular occurrence, with hybrid/remote school from Nov-March each year to avoid cold/flu seasons.

  11. Disrupting the "disrupters" is harder and harder by the day. FANG companies will buy anyone with promising tech/business that could possibly threaten their success. The big get bigger.

     

    There needs to be a new business that has been neglected previously (like Tesla did with electric cars). Maybe something in the blockchain space like Ripple mentioned above. Maybe Coinbase when they go public if they diversify within blockchain. I like what OSTK has done so far with an AMZN-esque e-commerce business that is developing into something more.

  12. Not sure I follow...I'm saying Amazon can make headway into the auto parts business because they can probably match the selection and delivery of auto parts stores. Maybe 1 day excess lag time but that may be worth it depending on the price difference.

    That's the thing, when you're talking auto parts 1 day excess lag time is forever in this world. Here we're talking more like 20 minutes delivery time. 2 hours is a long time and it's usually for a part that needs to be ordered from a DC. 1-2 days is for really weird/really expensive parts. The parts at the part stores aren't badly priced so there's not that much headway to be made there.

     

    Also many times you realize you need some part after you started the job and opened the car up. So you're talking either order after the job is started or multiple orders per job. Either way lag times are killers. People don't like to have their cars incapacitated for days and the pricing just isn't there to make it worth it. Plus the part stores offer a whole bunch of ancillary services (such as borrow a tool, diagnostics, etc) that's hard to do online.

     

    I'm not saying that Amazon won't sell more parts in the future, but it's not a field they're set up for, and they don't have a competitive advantage over the parts people.

     

    As someone who has spent time wrenching on cars, I can't stress the above post enough. Many projects start as a simple repairs, but snowball quickly into something more in depth. Several trips to the nearest auto parts store are often required.

     

    Mail order would work for a few obscure parts and/or types of cars that aren't commonly stocked at the local store. Also, what are the cost implications for shipping hazardous liquids (oils, lubricants, cleaners etc etc) for a company like Amazon?

  13. Researched the make/model I wanted and made casual calls/emails to local dealers asking for "out the door price." Then I drive to the dealer who had the best offer, chit chat for 10mins, and called the opposing dealers while I sat in their office. It turned into mayhem and my phone was exploding with their sales managers calling and knocking their prices down. I wound up staying with the lowest price dealer because they threw in a 7yr bumper to bumper warranty and still knocked a few % off the price.

     

    Here's an eye opening podcast that follows a dealership salesman for a month:

     

    https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/513/129-cars

  14. Airline pilot - Tech wise, airplanes already could fly with 1 pilot instead of 2 with autopilot doing pretty much all work. So 50% reduction immediately. But policy wise it's not gonna be accepted by humans. There's irrational fear of flying already, so there's not gonna be change until somehow humans accept 1 pilot+auto. Maybe 7+ years.

     

    The next generation of aircraft are already being developed for mid-2020s and the design requires 2 pilots. It will take 7+ years even after regulation changes for manufacturers to produce a single pilot airliner. Could you fly an airliner single pilot in an emergency? Absolutely. But the current design won't fly (haaah!) for everyday single pilot operations.

     

    Labor unions will fight tooth and nail to prevent this (because 50% less safe) and the traveling public will be on their side. I can't see this happening for 15-20yrs+, and even at that point it will be cargo carriers like FedEx/UPS first.

  15. Hey all:

     

    In the general market downturn today, a lot of clothiers got hit extra hard.  Many of them hit 52 week lows.  One of them was GES.  Buckle (BKE) came very close to hitting a 52 week low.

     

    These two would be my two picks in the clothing sector. 

     

    Anybody else taking action in this sector?

     

    I bought RL. I believe RL has one of the strongest brand values among clothiers and that is what will help them survive during the downturn. Also, if you assume eventually everything will be sold online, I think brand recognition becomes even more important.

     

    ^^^this right here, and think RL is a good choice

  16. Airlines

     

    I resemble that remark! Buffet came around though, we'll see how that works.

     

    This should be called the everything but technology stocks thread.

     

    Honestly I hate tech for the most part even though they are so profitable. FB, TWTR, SNAP, etc can all go out of business for all I care. Businesses predominantly supported by advertising dollars and page-clicks just seem so dumb.

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