News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The chance of a Bitcoin crash is greater than 80%. Parent comment

Re:The chance of a Bitcoin crash is greater than 80% by riku_iki on Friday December 01, 2017 @07:04PM (#15828963)
Shorting bitcoin would be borrowing them say at $5000 price, selling on the market on $5000 immediately, and then when it fall to say $2000, you buy it again, return to owner, and have extra $3000 in your pocket, so you got $3000 from your trade.

Just selling bitcoins now and sitting on the cash will not produce any income.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The chance of a Bitcoin crash is greater than 80% by odonnellryan on Saturday December 02, 2017 @11:14PM (#15835936)
No, but you can make the same bet that BTC will go down: but you don't get the money for it going down.

You can still go short on BTC: just sell now and buy when it goes down, if you're sure it will.

I understand it is a different mechanic. In your example, if BTC went to 10k you'd still have to return that 1 BTC to the person you borrowed it from.

[ Parent | on HN ]