As I said in my previous post, the two markets mostly move in lockstep. Whenever the two diverge, the arbs would come in and bid up one market and sell the other until the two converge again. So the question whether the futures can stray far away from the spot price is moot. That can never happen, at least not for long. Then the question remains: which leads which? Does the spot come before the futures or vice versa? For the most part, I concur the spot leads the futures. However, there can be times of vulnerability as pointed out earlier when the futures can play a pivotal role (eg. stop hunting, etc). But bitcoin futures is a little different from other futures. With other futures, there's not a physical spot market where trading takes place. For instance, even though you can trade the crude oil futures like CL, there's no actual place for trading physical crude oil itself. Same for the index futures like ES. But with Bitcoin, you can trade the futures as well as its underlying. Anyway, you need to understand this. The whales, who have enough resources to temporarily move the market, will likely trade all three markets at the same time: spot, futures and ETF. If I were a whale wanting to pummel the price down, I wouldn't just sell the spot bitcoin. I would go all in crushing all three markets at the same time. And that's called smart move, my friend, although some might call it market manipulation.
Yup, this totally makes sense. I have honestly been lucky by leaving so many bids in the market. Almost all have gotten hit and I was up in less than 24 hours... Then rinse and repeat. I realize there can be a 30% drop at some point, but I also don't expect it to stay down long. So as long as the position isn't so big that you're liquidated, I'm happy about these spikes down.
We see these really long tails at least once a day, especially at the bottom. Sometime twice. I dunno if these are the same players, but this tells me they know how to game the market to their advantage.
Just using TA on the daily chart makes it hard for me to increase my spot position. We haven’t had any real “rebalancing”, just sharp legs up with a small amount of consolidation on a few days. The key reversal that formed on 3/5 makes me want to be ready to short futures though. I don’t that that I’d be comfortable with shorting it like I would with other markets.
Shorting bitcoin is very dangerous. The fact that there has been no retracement doesn't mean we are overdue for one. It could mean that we are nowhere close to fair value.
Only a fool would short BTC at this time, at least for all but the most ultra short-term tactical play. Fundamental reallocation ETF flows will peter out over a period of weeks and months, but until then there will be a relentless price-insensitive bid under the market. Unlike in 2021-22, the landscape of possible event risks and catalysts leans far more bullish than bearish. And of course, all the old scams, games and tricks perpetrated by bad actors are still going on. Shorts are just fish food.
We've dropped 6.06% today so far (from the high to low) and 6.08% the other day, and a whopping 14.3% on 3/5/24. At this rate, I expect to see 10% or more moves in the future. This would be great if you know what you're doing.
Is the correct answer just having resting limit orders all the way down?? I'm doing it with BITX, which is a bit problematic because its leveraged, but from my quick analysis, the problem only starts to arise after a very long holding period of several months. But I do think playing this game would be safer with the top ETF, IBIT, since it has the tighest spreads, and then if forced to hold for a couple of months for a recovery, then its no big deal. I am hoping this selling doesn't get too extreme, and I'm also eager to see what the ETF inflows are for today. I think that's key going forward right now.
Here is how its looking for me right now. No idea why those black triangles aren't green because they are all buy orders. My platform seems to have issues when I don't use OCO orders, so the red exits I think are thought of as shorts. Anyway.... you see the first exit at the red mark, then scaled in... then another exit before the weekend. Then more buy orders on Monday and Tuesday. Shame to not close it down. I was just feeling too bullish, and now I have more orders just filled, and more orders waiting lower.