Robinhood shuts down option buying on $GME and $AMC
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This pertains only to the options chain expiring January 29th, i.e. in two days. You can still trade the stock, and you can still close positions you already have open, and you can still open and close positions expiring next Friday or any time after that.
RobinHood already doesn't allow you to open new options positions on the day they expire (0DTE). They would have suspended opening positions on the chain on the 29th anyways. All they did way move that date up to the 28th, one day earlier.
This is because trading options that close to expiry has a much higher likelihood of assignment (aka pin risk). This is a risk management strategy on their part, nothing more. Generally if you want to trade high-risk stuff like 0DTEs or 1DTEs on GME and AMC you should use a real broker, like InteractiveBrokers.
"Why? Honestly, to protect ourselves."
The foxes are guarding the henhouse. They always were, at least now is getting easier and easier for people to see it. But please, continue bashing crypto and those working on it...
This has nothing to do with my opinions on crypto. The level of scamming, stealing and corruption in the crypto market is orders of magnitude higher than anything Peterffy admitted to on CNBC.
You know this.
Bitfinex literally stole 36% of everyone's assets on deposit when they got hacked in 2016. [1] Not just the asset class that was hacked. All assets. Then they issued "tokens" redeemable for equity in Bitfinex valued at $1 each, which turned a $72 million dollar loss into a $72 million dollar valuation for Bitfinex. Then one of their clowns [Giancarlo Devasini IIRC] is recorded saying "the best way to get your money back is to sell your Bitfinex equity tokens to someone else before they realize what's going on." Of course, Coinbase is widely rumored to have told Bitfinex to get stuffed, and didn't take a 36% haircut at all (an institutional leaving you hanging?! in crypto?! gasp). Why no haircut for Coinbase you might you ask? Because it's fraud, a type of fraud called fraudulent conversion [2].
That behavior is the essence of the crypto space.
Peterffy is saying you're welcome to close your position but don't open anything new right now. Do I agree with that? No. Does it hold a candle to anything in the crypto space? Not a chance.
I don't criticize most people who are genuinely looking to improve crypto, I think they're misguided and wasting everyone's time, but that's not the same thing. They're free to spend their time how they wish.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitfinex-hacked-hongkong/...
[2] https://definitions.uslegal.com/f/fraudulent-conversion/#:~:....
That behavior is the essence of any entity that (a) concentrates too much power and (b) has no Skin in the Game.
Whenever you have this combination, Bad Things Happen (tm). Don't think it is exclusive to crypto. It doesn't matter if it is Bitfinex, Tether, Coinbase, JP Morgan, the Canadian Government or the IMF; the one thing to avoid is be at the mercy of entities that concentrate too much power and have no Skin in the Game.
> Peterffy is saying you're welcome to close your position but don't open anything new right now.
What he is doing is showing how the game is rigged and that's the only way that people can play. What he is doing is making it clear how much of a systemic issue it is. You are right, it has no comparison with what is happening in crypto. Hacks and crooks in crypto force the environment to become stronger and more robust to adapt and survive. Hacks and crooks in the Govt act like Bob Rubin: build up hidden risk, cause catastrophic failures of the system and make others pay for their mistakes, just like others will pay for Melvin Capital's mistakes and its CEO will walk away with clean hands.
> I think they're misguided and wasting everyone's time.
Let's put it this way: each shenanigan that Wall Street pulls like this means at least a few thousand people who will rather buy fucking $DOGE and UNI tokens instead of trusting these institutions. The shift is happening and is inevitable, it's just a matter of how fast we will be able to build it.
Why is it that when wall street pulls something, and has mechanisms to keep them accountable that will ideally be executed (there's a ton of lawsuits) it drives people to crypto. But when crypto does something shady you just say "ah ha decentralization works!! Satoshi will deliver, we just have to wait!!"
Nobody would "rather own $DOGE" lol, the wsb nihilists are pumping it like they pumped $GME. They're currently organizing to do the same with silver. And various other heavily shorted stocks like Dillards. They care exactly as much about $GME as they do about $DOGE. The goal is tendies on the moon. Not to own a ton of GameStop shares lol, and certainly not to own a ton of meme-based cryptocurrency with a dogs face on it.
Unlike the crypto maximalists, the wsb folks have the goal of making a bunch of money, and see the market they're operating in as a means to an end. Not some dog-themed revolution in money or assets.
For you, cryptocurrency is your world. It's a religion. It can do no wrong.
For the WSB crew, they're in it for the lulz, the memes, to get rich fast, to screw over their opponents (Melvin) and get their wife's boyfriend off their back. Most of these folks dont even own GameStop, they own GameStop derivatives they plan to settle in cash.
Do the lawsuits actually lead to people going to jail? Does it stop them from concentrating more wealth and exploiting things further? IOW, do these actions make the system less fragile? I guess not. That is the difference.
> They care exactly as much about $GME as they do about $DOGE.
That is not the point. The point is that there is no one to stop them. It's their risk, it should be their reward, and it should not depend on some referee that is pulling the card and calling the fouls only when it favors their friends.
I personally have zero interest in getting into this fight, but I am thrilled with the idea of people realizing that the current game is rigged and that the only way to win is not to play by their rules.
> cryptocurrency is your world. It's your religion. It can do no wrong.
First, how many times have I said already that the "currency" part is the least interesting section for most cypherpunks? The point is independence and resilience, cryptocurrency is just the beginning.
Second, "crypto" doesn't do anything. It can do as wrong as "Free Software".
People working in crypto can do wrong, have done wrong and there will be more examples to come. But - here's where I seem to lose you - whatever people do does not bring systemic risk. Mt Gox didn't kill Bitcoin. TheDAO didn't kill Ethereum. Tether won't kill Bitcoin or Ethereum. All the scammers and the people learning very expensive lessons won't kill crypto. All of these events (unpleasant as they are) cause shocks to the system that lead to reactions that make it stronger - better security, more permissionless applications, less centralization. This is how every robust system evolves.
(Yes, one could say that our institutions were already the result of centuries of social interactions and is what we had as the most robust solution. But the last years are seeing such a change in the environment that an evolutionary leap was bound to happen, and it is getting clear every day how the current system is failing to adapt fast enough.)
Worse, the ones benefiting from the status quo all want to keep the illusion that is all good and fine and that no change is needed. This is reactionary and ignores the fact that evolution is a continuous process. Bitcoin is not going to go extinct by decree. If Bitcoin ever gets to be extinct, it won't be because too many buttcoiners wrote on reddit or complained about how wasteful PoW is, or because some big shot got hacked and wanted its money back, or because Putin blocked transactions in Russia. It will be either because something clearly better came along and it was more fit for survival or because some other catastrophic event came and destroyed the environment (in the case, the Internet).
This is a case of the Vantablack swatch calling the kettle black.
This is your least compelling argument yet.
Keyword: anyone. Symmetry of information, symmetry of power. Symmetry of risk exposure and reward. I will take that over a golden cage - any day, any time.
No.
There's no symmetry of information between you and an exchange and the arbitrage bots and various other manipulation bots, whales in their discords, and so on. Between you and and the Tether bros. For instance, where's the audit? Only Tether and Bitfinex know what they're actually holding, if anything. That's not symmetry of information.
There's no symmetry of power. Power is a function of position size. Your statement is only true if everyone has a position of equal size.
There's no symmetry of risk exposure and reward. That's a function of your position size.
There's symmetry of opportunity to invest your position but it doesn't matter if you're an ant in front of a freight train. Both have equal access to the tracks! In fact that's not even true at exchanges or with variable transaction fees.
This argument you're making is basically Citizen's United. "Money is speech, and all speech is the same no matter how much it costs!" -- Incorrect. Money is volume. Anyone can talk free of charge but unless you're doing it loud enough, what you have to say doesn't matter because nobody can hear you.
I get it, these are the typical kool-aid lines from r/bitcoin. They do not stand up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny.
Tether is on the same track to become Mt. Gox, times a hundred. They are trying to outsmart the market and inevitably going to fail and wipe out the funds of those that trusted them. They will get rekt'd at some point. That will be good. Not for the people involved, but the overall system.
> This argument you're making is basically Citizen's United. (...) Anyone can talk free of charge but unless you're doing it loud enough, what you have to say doesn't matter because nobody can hear you.
Quite the opposite. My idea is that talk only should be considered when it is not cheap, when it involves a considerable stake from whoever is calling for action/change/bet. It is not free (of cost) and it should not be free (of consequences).
The problem is that the current system even when you get organized with a sizeable group (WSB) who is willing to pay the price and face the consequences, you still get silenced, shut down or rug pulled.