Look at RIOT et al. BTC going higher, stock lower. You maybe take 1 or 2 miners that could hold their price a few years but there are 100s of others that were large but don't exist anymore...
Core Scientific was the big daddy bad-ass. Owned a whopping 10% of the hashrate for the BTC network. Yes it went into chapter 11. But, this happened only due to a cash-flow problem. The perfect storm of getting caught right at the worst moment, with depleting revenue and dropped spot value. It was a similar cashflow issue as to what DMC ran into. Except that old John DeLorean couldn't get his flux-capacitor working yet to go back in time. And so he defaulted into a drug trade deal to raise cash, that obviously went bust by feds... leading to the final fate of the DeLorean Motor Company. Corz actually had bailouts offered to it before going into bankruptcy. But preferred to just take the chapter 11, and reorganize/restructure. Sure enough, it bounced back hard and in record time managed to also get rid of most of the debt. A lot of millionaires have been made by those who grabbed it at the bottom. Don't count on it out yet... I'm happy to hear more about what you have to say with the others... And long live DMC, they've rebought it back from the dead as well. You can order one as an EV.
Since we were on the topic of Core Scientific (CORZ), it is interesting to note that this week they hit a ~50% spike in just 24 hours... (middle left column) Again to recap, they did 2021 exceptionally well, by going aggressive on growth and became a big top player. Then after going public in Jan. 2022, they were in bankruptcy by December. What happened? Bitcoin price kept sinking lower and lower... Paradoxically, the hashrate kept increasing... War in Europe kicked off, spiking NatGas futures and hence mining energy costs... It was the perfect storm of a multi-pronged attack from these three inputs that sunk her. Not to mention there had already been a lot of debt at the start of January due to the capital expenditures from all that aggressive growth. Their leveraged free cash-flow was in the negative with little recourse. To further add, I haven't even included the issue of unprecedented interest rate hikes that hit them too, so I guess you could say it was the perfect storm of a 4-pronged attack. R.I.P.
Captain's log, Sunday June 9... I am dumb... Yes, that's right. I was dumb, that is D.U.M.B. It wasn't a catastrophe or anything, but as we will see in the following... So here is the thing... Purchased 10-round lots of Neptune Digital Assets (NDA) on the dubious Venture exchange. This penny stock is cheap, but I didn't want to go too over-board without more due diligence. Anyhow, I (may) add more over time as I probe deeper into the financial statements and project any possible future cashflows. The business model did seem interesting to me while doing my limited research to date. Shorted PUTs on Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) for the first time. This would be the only income-generating trade for the week (well, let's hope it ends in income). The dumb part, is that I had left my (limit) orders on during Friday for these two securities, which went into the close... and over the weekend... and of course when markets were down on Monday morning, I got fills at 9:30 right at market open basically letting the whole world arbitrage my stupidity away because I was too lazy and (too dumb) to raise the limits just in case this happens. Alright, it wasn't anything crippling, but too many of these poor habits is just giving away money when these bad habits all stack up. I will be paying a lot more attention over weekends going forward... I purchased another 10-round lots of Sato Technologies (SATO). Eventually I may stop when I have accumulated a full block. And, I grabbed a single round-lot of BMO Equal Weight REITs (ZRE). As long as REITs are crippled by debt and interest rates, my plan is to keep going forward with this a little at a time. I now am sitting on a stack of 2,000 shares, and that doesn't even include the counts in my other accounts, or other real estate ETFs. On average, each round-lot produces $9 of income each month. Lots of that is return-of-capital (RoC) so I don't even have to pay tax on that part. Current options standing as of this Sunday: If tomorrow is an up-day in crypto, I will try to sell off more of my long BTCC calls. Portfolio: Theta: 52.8 Vega: -600.1 Greed & Taxes... There seems to be quite some extreme greed brewing right now in the markets, it's starting to worry me. I'm going to try hard to pull back from adding much of any more trades for a while. When the AI bubble pops, this one is going to hurt. The longer this euphoria around Nvidia etc. runs, the worse will be the fallout. Maybe I should go into even more cash soon... that's a thought. Another interesting thought, is my tax-bracket. This year alone the realized capital gains from trading, not to mention un-realized gains I'm planning to cash in, as well as 20K+ in dividends is already pushing me into 6-figure income for the year. And that's only in this trading account. Not to mention I have to factor in my regular 9-5 job wages on top of this. So, I can honestly say I will get serious on my tax-loss harvesting this year. Though I'm not a fan of locking in losses. I plan to just close out winners sooner rather than later, and take some risk off the table that way. Basically locking in profits earlier for short-PUTs that are far out-the-money with little time value. I can always re-place the trades come January.
Captain's log, Saturday June 15... Vix is low, and everyone's getting far too complacent here... Continuing with last weeks goals, I am working toward taking risk off the table. Closed out one of my Coinbase (COIN) contracts (finally). I had an old limit order to get out at $300 for the 55 strike, and someone finally hit-the-bid for me. Note: Net Total shows up as a weird $413 here, because I have 'show positions value in base currency' checked in another window. The strike was so far OTM that there was very little time value left of anything, despite the contract wouldn't end until next year. Decided to just free up margin and take the gains earlier. BMO's Equal Weighted REITs (ZRE) was below $20 again, so I decided to buy two more round-lots for my stack. That's another $18 payout each month for this quasi-equity-bond. Current options standings: As can be seen, I still have a lone $135 COIN contract which will end in in 2026. Over half the premium is already milked to date. FX Balance: Portfolio: Theta: 48.0 Vega: -538.6 Trading Plan(s): It is about time I close out the MSTR contract soon. Very little time value left, despite it won't expire for a long time. I can re-deploy capital on something like ETHQ which is interesting, as this ETF takes advantage of Ether staking. So I am even less worried of assignment. The vol is just under 80% for the ETF.
Captain's log, Saturday June 25... Navigating the storm! After sailing for many days this week and hoping for a good spot to unwind more BTCC CALLs, we hit a shit-storm on Friday. While I knew there was a good chance for a big move, I was hoping to finally see an upside. But that was not to be. Not only was BTC down again, but miners were drowning. There was an exception with Stronghold, and lucky investors in FuFu popped almost 60%. The rest of the markets tanked. Even my favorite real-estate ZRE hit more lows (which I was grateful for). I waited during the day for a rally near market close, but there was too much panicking. After looking around to see what caused the panic, it turns out that a group which was following Germany's government based BTC wallets, noticed they were moving Bitcoins in order to dump billions worth of them onto the open spot-market (no OTC trading desks)! Naturally, bidders got out of the way in a hurry, and leveraged miners were affected much more strongly. I canceled my limit-orders on the sales of BTCC CALLs, and began to take advantage of the miner sell-off. I was ok with shorting 4 more PUTs on BitDeer (BTDR), even though I still have more leaps on this. Friday I had a bunch of these contracts expire, so I'm just continuing my positions, though at a higher strike now of 7.5. It is my firm belief that Bit-Digital (BTBT) is still highly undervalued, so I added more short-put LEAPs here as well. I had been debating on doing this for quite some time now. As for standard stock purchases... Greenidge (GREE) is something I decided to finally add. It is a very controversial miner as it is vertically integrated with its own energy facility. I have become much more attuned to organizations that are vertically integrated, so I 'may' begin to add more of this onto my stack over time. With BMO's Equal Weighted REITs (ZRE) reaching more lows, I decided to pull the trigger in a bigger move than usual. I bought up 6 more round-lots for the stack. Now the size is 28 lots total, which will pay out $252 every 30-days (or over $3K every 12-months). The only issue is I depleted most of the CAN cash reserve, but still hold quite some long options to liquidate and tank it back up. If only the German government could stop flooding the market with BTC, I'll start the process. Current positions: Portfolio: Theta: 52.1 Vega: -550.9 Looking again at this cash position, reminds me I need to re-build the reserve up. Particularly since the USD cash stockpile is going to be depleted in a few months as well. SVV short-contracts are ITM and VERV also is unlikely to rebound any time soon. It's still a few months away, but I am prepared to take assignments. If the market as a whole tumbles, I just may try to do some rolling. Guidance: Next week my Micro-Bitcoin futures-options should expire in my favour. Unless of course, if BTC falls under 30K. I'm not too worried of this, though when the next implosions occurs in this market, it will be very interesting to see who's been swimming naked again.
Captain's log, Monday Jul 1st... Onwards to planet Bit Digital (BTBT)... Despite the year being half-over now, and today a Monday (holiday), I am making my report a little late since I was too busy on the weekend. We held the ship steady thought the volatility and FUD of the week, and executed some more trades. Since Bitcoin is still highly suppressed, and I expect the market to recover by August, I decided to bat-ton the hatches and fire off 5 more short-puts on BTCC.B. I decided to also double down on 1,000 shares of Neptune Digital Assets (NDA). And of course, to double down on another 1,000 shares of Sato Technologies (SATO) for similar reasons. It is just a guesstimate, but I feel there is a moderate chance I am front-running Sato which very likely will join the ranks of becoming an HPC/Miner hybrid in the near future. I also got a bit thrifty by shorting 3 more PUTs on Value Village (SVV). Since we're all getting poorer in the western colony, might as well invest more into second-hand shops. Business will always be ringing. Profit margins on SVV should be low for a long time with the high interest rates and large cap-ex (due to store growth). That's how I like it for now. Keep that stock price down! Current standings (as of the weekend): Our Micro Bitcoin Futures-Options (MBT) expired O-T-M, due to the 30K strike. I wasn't too worried about that. And am happy for the extra little income we made. FX Balance: Cash reserves a bit low still, but not at critical levels. I just couldn't bring myself again to sell my long BTC calls while everything is still suppressed with all the selling FUD. During the weekend, I spent quite some time going over my latest mission plan. With BTBT going heavily into HPC and vertical integration, I decided to find a spot to short PUTs and get in under current market price. And if I succeed in assignment, will sell covered-calls going out a couple years. But... that was a trade to do for Monday (today), which I will save for more details on next report. Sneak-peak of what's to come:
Sun July 7th... The Milk-Run Shit-Show... Captain's log: Wow, what a shit-show happened to us during this planned milk-run. First, the German government decided to take a big shit and start dumping their sovereign Bitcoins all over the market. Then if that wasn't enough, immediately after everyone had to take cover because the final Mount Gox proceedings are in finalization. Not to mention, old Gox wallets started back up and and Bitcoins began making their way to exchanges. Now, it doesn't take a hardened general to figure out quickly what the intention is once the BTC arrives at the exchanges... Markets fell further down in a sea of red. And looks like we're still in the abyss. To make things worse, the number of Bitcoins Germany sold is still just a fraction of what she has left to unwind into this mess. Ironically, I managed to short puts at the worst possible time. Did so just before the fireworks started. And yet.... somehow... my PUTs that I shorted in-the-money actually are out-of-the-money... The markets can truly remain irrational... As in the earlier sneak-peek, I shorted 10 puts total at a strike of 3.5 set to expire in August. Now this figures, I was hoping to get assigned, instead these shorts 'may' expire worthless. I guess the market sniffed it out this time around. But lots can change from now till then. Note on the day, BTBT jumped about 10% despite world-wide panic in crypto continues: Current Options Positions: Damn. My long calls are getting CRUSHED! Portfolio: (As of now) Theta: 62.0 Vega: -556.0 Current Red-Sea shit-show as of tonight, (Sunday 9:47pm): Looks like LEO is green. Seriously? WTF is 'LEO' anyway? Another shit-coin no doubt! --- Current battle plans: None. We play the sit & wait game. Expect selling to increase throughout the month (unless Germany realizes they are fucking themselves by tanking the market). Even worse will be the Mt. Gox selling. Let's see how much cheaper things will be for a while... Battening hatches. This is why you never over-leverage...
Captain's log: Friday July 12.. The Iris Energy Bombshell With great caution, we continued through the treacherous waters. The German government continued to dump and dump on us. And then dump some more. Unbeknownst to me, a bombshell would hit and Iris Energy (IREN) was going to take a big drop into the vortex. Unfortunately, I was still asleep in my cabin on Thursday morning; taking a day off my duties as I was sick. It was only hours later I got word regarding the IREN implosion. The stock had flash-crashed ~20% but had recuperated about half that when I first took the controls of the ship. We took action and played our part to take advantage of the battle... Trade Logbook: There was an explanation for the (IREN) implosion. Turns out that Culper Research sent out a short-paper regarding the stock. Naturally, everyone panicked. Further details here: July 11, 2024 - Iris Energy Ltd (IREN): A Prius at the Grand Prix(pdf) https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/cc...ads/Culper_IREN_7-11-24.pdf?ver=1720711055685 Interesting to note, by Friday, here's how things with the miners were looking again: At the end of the day, the current options were standing at: I spent some time updating some excel/numbers sheets, and added some modifications, such as to show the percentage of 'bleeding out of contracts' for the short-puts. Naturally, any trades that are going against me have negative percentage rates. I still need more things to customize on this... in due time. Cash Positions: Portfolio: Theta: 67.6 Vega: -576.8 "I like the stock." - R.K.
Captain's Log: Friday July 19th... Revisiting Bitcoin Future-Options!! Thursday evening I come home, markets have just closed. Then I find out this super-important rumor: "Shit!! Fuck, fuck fuck fuck!" I can't do anything with crypto ETFs because... markets don't open until 9:30 am! I immediately jump into CME's over-night futures trading and start shorting puts out into the longest actively traded month (December). Later on, I decide I should do more, but on permanent holding value. But how? Then I loaded up another broker which supports 24/7 trading of spot crypto, and threw in another 4-digit paycheck and purchased more Bitcoin, with 20% of the value going into Ether. The market started to only process this today, which I'm finding surprising how much arbitrage there is still left in crypto. I could close out and bank some profits on today's rally with the Future-Options, but want to milk this for quite a bit more... And ironically, I had just earlier this week gone long on Truth Social (DJT). I really regret I let too many far-leftists talk me out of doing this when the price was much lower. But that's what I get for trying to do my due-diligence, and listening to the same old libertards Better late than never... Then, I realized I made a mistake. I meant to only short-puts for the contract of Jan 2025. Not 2026 for barely any added value. Oh well, lesson learned there. I can always close out early (maybe). Will see how this goes. And here are the options positions, with FOPs added back to the top as used to be the norm. Added Notes: So, my calls on HIVE are only down half a grand now. They may not be the total write-off I had been expecting. As for BTCC.B I am obviously happy to see a 5K+ gain on the day. Though, I honestly can not be sure where this will end up with Mt. Gox still getting ready to rain hard. Cash Position: Portfolio: Theta: 105.3 Vega: -819.9 --- Final Notes: Whoops! Almost forgot. I will have 300 shares of Savers Value Village (SVV) get assigned and the stock PUT to me over the weekend. I'm perfectly ok with this and have been waiting for some time... All seems to be going too well? I can only assume this means my downfall is imminent. I'll avoid pre-ordering the Lambo, but settle for a Benz instead.