I'm a bit confused by all the talk about how bitcoin futures will affect bitcoin price.
As far as I understand, a futures contract is a binding agreement between 2 parties where mr A will buy an asset from mr B at a beforehand specified price and time.
The asset can be any commodity like oil etc, and are used both by producers as hedge and by speculators.
It is often possible to settle the agreement directly in cash, without buying/selling the actual underlying asset. I suspect most speculators prefer this option.
So, how will bitcoin futures work?
Will they require buying/selling bitcoin itself or will they just be settled in fiat cash?
I suspect these futures will primarily be used by speculators who probably will prefer to just settle them in cash.
So why would such a contract affect the bitcoin price at all?
I'm new so thanks for taking your time and explaing this to me
In theory, futures should be backed by real bitcoin holdings which the issuers of the futures would hold, but im not sure... I think futures is just legal institutional gambling. Wall Street will try to control the price through futures. It depends on how stupid the market is to let themselves get manipulated by the price of something that is not even real Bitcoin. We are dealing with billionaire weasels now, it's a new different level never seen before in Bitcoin.
My recommendation: Ignore futures and it's price, and only trade real bitcoins directly, anything that isn't this is on the scammy side.
does this mean that the issuers will be trading bitcoin normally in order to obtain more holdings for more Futures traders?
We are dealing with billionaire weasels now, it's a new different level never seen before in Bitcoin
i think this what a lot of people have concerns about, the futures traders are different,
they will definitely not care about crypto, blockchain, open source, decentralised tech.