It's easy to tell you're relatively new here, twiifm, so welcome to the forum. A couple of quick clarifications:
"Taking both sides" & "taking sides of both directions" essentially mean the same thing. Way to nitpick semantic to look smart. Impressive
On the contrary, there's an easy avenue for misunderstanding here, since "taking both sides" frequently refers to
literally taking both sides of a trade -- both buying and selling the same underlying entity, generally with a view to profiting on the spread between the two corresponding prices. If we were talking about arbitrage or about market making, this is exactly the phrase we'd be using. Given that your same post included obviously false statements such as "Since theres no options market for bitcoin theres no hedge", it's probably not hard to see how folks might misunderstand where you were coming from.
Buying bitcoin futures is not much different than buying bitcoin on margin. Doesn't make sense for investors who want to hedge. Buy bitcoin / sell bitcoin future. If this is a 1:1 delta hedge is pointless. If you think the bitcoin price will drop just sell your position b/c you achieve the same thing
On the contrary, as a general point there are plenty of ways to generate returns even with a delta neutral position, although in reality virtually nobody is going to maintain a fully delta hedged position in the Bitcoin space using the currently available services and tools. For everyone with significant experience in options trading, for example, the common candidates are theta and vega. For an example which is specific to the Bitcoin space and futures in particular, see
Selling the Froth: A Simple Hedged Forex Strategy for Bitcoin-Denominated Returns.
Therefore, while your suggestion of simply selling BTC when you believe it will drop against fiat is actually
a very good strategy, it seems to me entirely wrong to characterise delta neutral hedging as "pointless".
Also its retarded to hold a position w one broker and hedge it on another if you are an investor. There will quite a bit of slippage trying to manage the 2 positions separately.
This is an interesting theoretical judgement, but investors who are more concerned with the actual returns that can be achieved will likely do exactly that when the prices suit them. This is analogous to how experienced options investors out there in the real world will route options orders to specific market makers using Level II quotes. In the Bitcoin space, using currently available services, slippage is a fact of life.
have you used any of the 2 services you recommend? Because BTC.sx doesn't even seem like a legit business. They force you to register account just to peak at the website & the CEO only has one interview on youtube thats extremely vague and smells of marketing BS
I was not recommending them, I was mentioning them as examples.
Of course I have used them, both in the course of managing the original
BTC Growth fund, a 2000 BTC hedge fund-style service which operated last year, and a modest successor fund in forex, and in my own private trading.