Bitcoin ETF

You guys that know about bitcoin what do you think about them? Worth it or not?

MARA and RIOT also follow the price of Bitcoin, guess I have no looked into the ETF. What are the Tickers?

Have no idea was just reading about them starting and was asking what people thought .

Are you talking about the bitcoin futures ETF's ?

There are three currently if I remember correctly.

BITO, XBTF, and BTF

Your thoughts on them?

Not for me. The fact that they are based on futures makes it an expensive proposition because of the way the fund has to continually buy more long-dated contracts as short dated contracts expire. So you are always paying more for contracts dated out 6 months while near term contracts are selling for less. The condition is called "contango" and it exists in most all futures markets.

The fund ends up experiencing what is called "negative roll yield".....AKA losing money.

Probably more than you wanted to know

I think the only value is that you don't have to hold the BTC yourself and you can short sell . Oh and can trade on the traditional exchanges instead of the having to open accounts on the cryptoexchanges.

I think the ETFs opens Bitcoin up to more games being played

Futures exchanges are pretty strictly regulated. The one possible advantage that I can see is the ability to hedge a position in another bitcoin product.

All in all, I don't see much for the small investor to like. The biggest beneficiaries will be the ETF's parent company

Thanks

Just buy bitcoin

How is it that Bitcoin stocks continue to sky rocket high, but the companies that mine them not so much?

Folks just built a brand new bitcoin mining company within my county called the Whinstone facility; supposedly it got bought by RIOT. Makes me sick really, all this good farmland and ranchland is being subdivided for houses and big companies. This is in the fastest growing part of our state. They say that this new facility uses enough electricity to power 150,000 homes. I really don't know how they can operate. How is it possible to for a commodity to be worth what Bitcoin is and the industries that mine it, less than $30 a share?

I hear ya on the loss of open space. On the other hand, which would you rather see..........a large facility like that or 150,000 new homes. I know which I would prefer.........neither !

To address your question about the share price of RIOT. This is the first year out of the last 5 that they have made a profit. But the real culprit is that they keep issuing new shares that dilute previous shareholder value. They only earned 42 cents per share in the trailing 12 months. I know that 27-30 bucks a share seems cheap but it is actually very expensive relative to their earnings.

What he said lol.

Just because the price is high doesn't mean they can mine it at a low enough cost to make a profit.

Thank you White and Steven! They keep putting in the local paper that they will only use electricity when everybody is asleep, or when energy demands are not up. With all the new houses popping up and land being subdivided, I just don't know how they can operate. (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman), our county don't even have 150,000 homes, YET!

We are getting both at the same time! My property taxes went up 10K/acre this year!

If you look at RIOT's market cap, its went from roughly 160M last october to 2.6'ish Billion today. Think the high was 4'ish Billion back in February

Energy prices, mining efficiency, reward rate is going to factor against the profit. Also remember, bitcoin just before "15 days to slow the spread" last year was trading in the 5-7k and had been bumping in that range for 2 years since the spike in the winter of 17-18 where it went to 20k.

Good point Sniper.

OUCH !

I don't understand it Sniper, what does that mean?

Every so often, you can look up the details if you wish to learn more, the amount of bitcoin that is awarded to the miners is reduced. That's why its going to take a long time before the last few million worth of coins are going to be mined. The more the reward rate goes down, the less the profit is going to be assuming BTC prices and energy prices stay the same.

Thank you Sniper. My financial advise come from Tman and folks like you, White, Steven, Bryce, and Decoy Mecoy based solely on what ya'll think. I respect every one of your opinions.
If I am hearing ya'll, correctly, then investing in RIOT is not a good idea? I was thinking about getting a couple of shares; I can stand to lose $40 dollars if its worth the gamble.

I cant see RIOT loosing you money anytime soon. Probably wont double it anytime soon though either as theres a lot of stuff that can go on. But for 40 bucks, thats not something id loose sleep on so...

I like it! Thanks Sniper!

I didn't understand crypto well enough to invest in individual items like Bitcoin so I looked for a broader ETF and settled on BLOK. They are a block chain ETF and hold some crypto but are broader than just the currency. It's up 22% since I bought it in late July and I feel like it is much less volatile than individual currencies. Over the years I have found mutual funds and ETFs to be much less stressful (and actually more profitable) than individual stocks.

I'd agree with that. Just be prepared for the volatility of the stock. It will fluctuate, or is expected to fluctuate, 4-5 percent per day. But with a small investment that should be manageable.

Just make sure you don't confuse RIOT mining company with RIOT games. Not sure the latter is traded though

Somebody should start a stock picking thread

Much easier to own the coin after an intro period of learning. If you want help with the how's - shoot me a message. It's confusing at first but once you get it, it's nothing really.
Other items that have exposure to coins would be trusts. Similar but different to like a Sprott Precious metal trust.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust - GBTC

Chancy, why do you feel Riot would be a good investment? What is your end goal, are you just looking for some exposure to the Bitcoin market with hopes of some profit?

If so I'd counsel just purchase some fractional Bitcoin.

Even though I agree with Sniper that you can't get hurt too badly buying a couple shares of RIOT.....I agree even more with Steven. IMO.......the probability of a successful outcome is greater if you just invest in bitcoin even though I am not interested in either..............for me.

Thanks for the response Steven. I really don't have a reason for the investment other than it won't break my pocket to by $40 dollars worth. I guess what got me interested in it is how big a facility they built down here and also the stuff in the local paper talking about them, I figured why not?

All I know is things are changing so fast in my little rural county with all kinds of tech companies coming in. I also have no faith in the long-term future of the dollar; as I have seen how much money I made off interest in the last 10 years off my savings account at the local bank. With current interest rates, I think I have lost money, but I'm not smart enough to really tell. Since I cant even buy a fraction of a fraction of a Bitcoin, I figured that investing in something that makes Bitcoin makes sense.

I'm new to stocks and trading and understand from the folks on this forum that you really need to know what you are doing if one is to invest in the market properly and intelligently. Its not about making fast money, but rather protecting what you have. I had about $1000 dollars to invest in and I bought one stock of Tesla. Still had a bit left, and thought what the heck, I'll buy a couple of RIOT. The Whinstone facility is very big down here and employs a lot of people, but most are not locals; perhaps it won't fail. So much going on with housing, big business, and huge technologies going on down here its crazy!

It may be a bad investment because all these new homes they are building are going to need electricity. According to the local paper, this Bitcoin mining facility will be a direct competitor with all the new homes......energy will have to come from somewhere and down here if builders are not subdividing farmland for new houses, then they are placing solar panels. Really crazy situation.

I don't understand how Bitcoin mining really works, but if it does one day replace the dollar then I thought it was worth the gamble. Chancey

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/10/11/texas-bitcoin-mining-rush-electric-grid/

The people that are Against Bitcoin never Joined the Bitcoin Train when it was Cheap or have no idea what they are talking about.

If you did , your Investment is up 49,000% literally .. Currently $61,119 for one coin. So tell me again how it was a Bad investment... LOL.

You could have bought them for 400 dollars each years ago.

You guys better stick to trapping, Bitcoin is better then our American dollar thats backed by Trillions of Debt.

The fact that banks are now interested crypto will only make the Market stronger , its way of future investments, until the Government wants their hand in it to Keep you Poor as possible.

Chancey,
When the power grid in TX crashes due to virtual bitty coins, we may need to start eatin' our bobcats and jacks over an open fire like the comancheros used to, Si?

Blessings,
Mark

Chancy I hate to break it to you but your money in savings has been losing value factoring in for inflation since at least 2008. This year one is losing at least 4 percent.

Now let's discuss your reasonings for purchasing RIOT. If you want to buy it because it's a local company that has potential and you want to invest a minimal amount that is fair and I have done the same thing. Now if your reasoning is because you think the dollar may fail and there is a possibility Bitcoin will become a real means of exchange then I say just buy Bitcoin.

Why? Because it's going to be a bumpy ride getting there, bitcoin prices are very volatile and profitability for miners is dependent on electricity prices. One I am about to say next in no way an opinion of RIOT as a company but the market it's in. Can RIOT withstand those fluctuations? I have no idea. One thing I know for sure is no matter how many miners go broke, today you can buy roughly .0008 bitcoin. No matter what happens to the price you will still have .00065.

There will come day when bitcoin isn't priced in USD or any other currency for that matter.

Thank you Steven for the comment. You really pinned my thought process to a T. Part of me wants to invest in a local company and the other part thought that getting in with a mining company due to the situation of the dollar. Until now, I did not realize I could by a fraction/percentage of Bitcoin. I thought one had to buy the whole share, which is of course unattainable. How does one go about buying .0008 of a stock?

What do you mean by saying that bitcoin won't be priced in the dollar or any other currency..........will it be its own currency and there is no exchange rate?
I do appreciate you taking the time to comment on these threads! Chancey.

On the crypto exchanges, you just buy how much in the crypto you want. If you put in 100 dollars, you get 100 dollars, minus fees, of BTC.(which BTW is about .0016 BTC atm)

Chancey, let me reiterate, don't buy cryptocurrency on my advice, when asked about it by friends in conversation, my general response is it's has a 50 50 chance of going to a half-million plus or zero. It will go to one or the other. Research it and decide if it's for you or not. I don't try and convince anyone to enter that market only explain what little I know.

Like a dollar is divisible into cents, a Bitcoin is divisible into what is called a Satoshi. One hundred cents in a dollar, 100 million Satoshis in a Bitcoin. So yes it's possible and easy to buy fractional bitcoin.

The easiest place to buy bitcoin is on an exchange. I only recommend coinbase because that is the one I signed up with and for no particular reason. You can buy bitcoin on robinhood if you have an account. Exchanges will charge you a fee for a transaction. I believe Coinbase is 1.49 per transaction plus a small percentage of that transaction cost. The less you buy at a time, the higher percentage the transaction cost. At 20 dollars it will be about 7.5 percent, 40 will be about 5 percent.

Percentages are what matter.

I failed to mention in an earlier post that miners' income doesn't only come from the bitcoin they are awarded. They make money on transactional costs as well. How much that is I haven't a clue.

Piggy backing on Steven's comments about fees, here is a comparison of the pros & cons of different approaches to buy.

Let me know if you can't open the link

https://emailshare.cmail20.com/t/n/d-l-2f3d8df73b2611ec9d9893b473600400-l-d-r-l/

Whatever you do, do not buy on coinbase or robinhood. happy to not hijack the thread and go to pm's if you have questions about wallets & exchanges.

I can understand the recommendation to not use Robinhood but why not coinbase.

If one is nervous to leave it in the exchange it's easy to put on a cold storage wallet.

For essentially the same reasons. It's one of, if not the least private exchange entity. They can, do & have tracked accounts to wallets & transactions. They can, do & have worked directly against their users w/ the DOJ & the IRS. They can, do & have shut down customers access to their accounts w/ no communication. Abysmal customer service. Abysmal track record. Little to nobody outside of the unknowing general public uses coinbase. This isn't just your address & password type thing, this is your assets. Please stay far away from coinbase & robinhood.