Bitcoin’s Waning Dominance Stirs Warning of Crypto Market Froth

Bitcoin’s Waning Dominance Stirs Warning of Crypto Market Froth

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) – China is shaping up to be the first real test of Big Tech’s ambitions in the world of carmaking, with giants from Huawei Technologies Co. to Baidu Inc. plowing almost $19 billion into electric and self-driving vehicle ventures widely seen as the future of transport.While Apple Inc. has long had plans for its own car and Alphabet Inc. has Waymo, its autonomous driving unit, the size – and speed – of the move by China’s tech titans puts them at the vanguard of that broader push. The lure is an industry that’s becoming increasingly high tech as it pivots away from the combustion engine, with sensors and operating systems making cars more like computers, and the prospect of autonomy re-envisioning how people use will them.As the world’s biggest market for new-energy cars, China is a key battlefield. Established automakers like Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co. are already slogging it out with local upstarts such as market darling Nio Inc. and Xpeng Inc. Over the past three months, Huawei, smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp., Baidu – which runs China’s top search engine and a mapping app – and even Apple’s Taiwanese manufacturing partner Foxconn have joined the fray, forging tie-ups and unveiling their own carmaking plans.Nowhere was that more on display than at last month’s Shanghai Auto Show, which has become one of the world’s premier events for showcasing the hottest new trends in the automotive sector. Visitors queued for hours to access the pavilions of Huawei and Baidu, thronging their displays and snapping pictures of sensor systems, high-tech dashboards and model vehicles. But despite the intense interest, the era of the new car is a hyper-competitive one in China, and tech giants have a lot to prove.“There’s a big element of faith in the tech companies’ bets,” said Stephen Dyer, managing director of consultancy AlixPartners in Shanghai and a former Ford Motor Co. executive. “This is a matter of creating something new that doesn’t exist now. That’s where the element of faith comes into play.”Huawei has been at the fore, recently announcing plans to invest $1 billion in EVs and its own self-driving technology, which it claims has “already surpassed” electric car pioneer Tesla Inc. in some aspects.The Shenzhen-based company, better known for its mobile-phone networks and being the subject of crippling U.S. sanctions, has unveiled its first car developed with BAIC BluePark Mew Energy Technology Co. The mid-sized Arcfox S sedan uses HI, or Huawei Inside, an intelligent automotive software package that enables it to run on autonomous driving mode in city areas for more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) without human intervention. Delivery is slated to start in the fourth quarter.Huawei’s auto show display attracted larger crowds than nearby China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Ltd., an EV upstart that took one of the biggest stands to showcase nine models despite the fact it hasn’t sold a car under its own brand. As well as the Arcfox S sedan, a Seres SF5 coupe equipped with Huawei Inside was on display, along with Huawei’s HiFin Intelligent Antenna Solution, a new generation in-vehicle communication system plus 4D-imaging radar that’s used to monitor roads and traffic.One of the biggest challenges for new entrants to the automotive sector is how capital and resource intensive it is to make cars. How tech companies negotiate that will be key, and potentially provide opportunities for established players in the sector, with Huawei repeatedly saying its plan is not to produce its own vehicles. Rather, it’s partnering with three Chinese automakers – BAIC Motor Corp., Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. – to make self-driving cars that will carry its name as a sub-brand.Guangzhou Auto will jointly build a “truly unmanned car” that will be produced in 2024, President Feng Xingya said last month. The carmaker will also cooperate with Huawei on big data, smart cockpits, and hardware and electronic chips, Feng said.“China adds 30 million cars each year and the number is growing,” Huawei Deputy Chairman Eric Xu said in April. “Even if we don’t tap the market outside of China, if we can earn an average 10,000 yuan ($1,550) from each car sold in China, that’s already a very big business.”Apple appears to be considering a similar route, talking at one point with carmakers including Hyundai Motor Co. before discussions fizzled. Unlike China’s tech giants, Apple is keeping its plans largely secret. The company lost a key manager overseeing its self-driving car program in February and it’s unclear what impact that may have had on Apple’s progress on delivering a commercially viable car.The rise of smart vehicles and autonomous driving throws up a raft of possibilities for tech companies, not least access to data such as real-time insight into popular destinations and the routes taken to get there. On top of that, for some there’s the opportunity to charge for tech add-ons and system improvements, essentially treating the vehicle like a piece of computer hardware that constantly gets its software updated.“They will definitely focus on being intelligent,” said Yale Zhang, managing director of Shanghai-based consultancy Autoforesight Co. “Making a good electrified car is a ‘pass,’ while making a good intelligent car will make an ‘A-grade.’ That’s what these tech giants are good at. Their main revenue will not be from selling the car but finding other ways to earn post-sale, such as over-the-air system upgrades or software subscriptions.”Big Tech in China Is Eyeing EVs for a Reason: Hyperdrive DailyFirst MoversBaidu – which started investing in robo-taxi technology as early as 2013 and funded Chinese EV startup WM Motors – now plans to spend $7.7 billion over the next five years developing smart-car technology via its newly established unit Jidu Auto. The division aims to launch its first model in three years, followed by new releases every 12 to 18 months, Chief Executive Officer Xia Yiping said.“The core value of cars in the future will be how intelligent they are,” Xia said, echoing a familiar refrain. “The earlier a company plans, the more control of self-developed technologies it gains, the more advanced technology it has, the more power it will own in the market.”Jidu has a core team of about 100 staff, and will expand to as many as 3,000 personnel by the end of next year, including up to 500 software engineers, he said. The first batch of cars will be based on Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.’s pure EV manufacturing structure, while Jidu will collaborate with Baidu’s autonomous-driving unit Apollo, with a special focus on smart cars and the mass production of autonomous driving features. The unit will embark on its next fundraising round soon, with further investment expected from Baidu and external investors.Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has also announced plans to invest about $10 billion over the next decade to manufacture electric cars, though hasn’t disclosed much detail or given a timeframe for deliveries. Billionaire co-founder Lei Jun in March announced his intention to lead a new standalone division and spearhead the drive into EVs, in what he called his final major startup endeavor.“We have deep pockets for this project,” Lei, who is also Xiaomi’s chief executive officer, said when unveiling the plan. “I’m fully aware of the risks of the car-making industry. I’m also aware the project will take at least three-to-five years with tens of billions of investment.”While China’s tech giants may be late to the game and entering unfamiliar territory, that could play to their advantage, said Dyer of AlixPartners.“This isn’t an industry where you have to be the first-mover to win,” he said. “In fact, in the auto industry, the first mover typically never wins. It’s always the follower who wins. Because when you are the first mover, you’re the one paying to learn through all the mistakes.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Wall Street Uses Old Tricks in $2.4 Trillion Crypto Jungle

(Bloomberg) –

Wall Street traders like Trey Griggs are finding a new lease on life in the $2.4 trillion crypto Wild West.

After two decades in energy trading, the 51-year-old was lured by a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. colleague this February into a new world of market-making in digital currencies.

Now he’s in fighting spirits – unleashing old-school finance tricks to exploit the industry’s rampant inefficiencies, volatility and downright weirdness.

“All the fun that used to be had 30 years ago in the commodity markets and is no longer fun – that fun is now in crypto,” says the U.S. chief executive officer at GSR Markets in Houston.

Griggs is among crypto newcomers deploying systematic strategies that are tried-and-tested in conventional asset classes – price arbitrage, futures trading, options writing – in a booming new corner of finance. As more mainstream investors get behind Bitcoin, boutique firms are joining the likes of Mike Novogratz in an ever-broadening crypto rally that keeps breaking records.

For those who can stomach the price swings, the threat of exchange hacks and the byzantine market structure, complex fast-money trades are offering an alternative way to ride the digital mania.

At GSR, the firm’s bread and butter is market-making, where traders pocket the spread between buy and sell orders.

In stocks, that’s a nearly oligarchic business where the likes of Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial operate at lightning speed. In virtual currencies, where hundreds of exchanges offer free access at a slower pace, GSR can capitalize on the big volumes without splurging millions on high-frequency infrastructure.

“Part of the tech we have is just to tell us did we actually trade or not, is this trade good or bad,” says GSR co-founder and former Goldman trader Richard Rosenblum. “We don’t want to be slower than our competitors, but it’s just not quite as much of the driver.”

For every strategy in stocks, bonds or currencies rendered boring by low rates, regulation or market crowding, there’s a lucrative trade in a token lying across the hundreds of exchanges out there. Or so the thinking goes.

Story continues

Read More: Veterans of FX’s Wilder Days Are Loving Bitcoin’s Volatility

While crypto die-hards have made merry like this for years, the relentless rallies across the tokensphere this year are drawing more Wall Street converts seeking riches and new thrills.

Take Mark Treinkman. After a career mostly at proprietary stock-trading shops like Chimera Securities, digital money is renewing his passion for quant trading.

“I’ve been going through some of my old strategies and things that wouldn’t have worked in equities in decades have an edge in crypto still,” he says.

A market-neutral strategy run by his $60 million firm BKCoin Capital gained 71% last year using investing styles that often include arbitraging different prices across exchanges and the gap between the spot and futures market.

For a few minutes during trading on Wednesday, for example, the price of Ethereum Classic jumped well above $100 on the Coinbase exchange. The digital token was trading at less than $80 at other venues, offering an obvious opportunity for investors to make money simply by buying in one place and selling in another.

It’s one of the best-known – albeit diminishing – discrepancies exploited by the likes of Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm filled with former traders from high-frequency shops. A famous example is the kimchi premium, the tendency for Bitcoin to trade higher in South Korea thanks to strong demand and the difficulty of moving money around to profit from the gap.

With no one-stop prime broker to centralize trading books and offer clients leverage across venues, traders like Treinkman face plenty of challenges in their bid to arbitrage price gaps, but say the rewards are commensurate.

And the opportunities pop up everywhere. For instance, when longer-dated futures in pretty much any asset class trade higher than the spot price – known as contango – the former almost always converges to the latter as the contracts mature.

That’s popularized the crypto basis trade, where an investor goes long the spot rate and shorts the futures.

When Bitcoin last peaked in mid-April, the December contracts were nearly 4% higher than August which were in turn about 2% higher than the spot reference rate, as speculators unleashed bets on rising prices. By contrast, the December oil contracts were trading beneath August’s on the same day, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The crypto market is still dominated by retail investors who use excessive leverage and bid the premiums for futures,” said Nikita Fadeev, a fund manager at $60 million crypto unit at quant firm Fasanara Capital.

Trades common in the industry also include short-term momentum and a form of statistical arbitrage, which bets on gaps between various tokens eventually closing like when Ethereum is surging but Bitcoin isn’t, Fadeev says.

As assets grew, the fund recently appointed Laurent Marquis, the former co-head of derivatives at Citadel Securities, as chief risk officer, and Steve Mobbs, co-founder of quant fund Oxford Asset Management, as senior adviser.

Over in Zug, Switzerland, St. Gotthard Fund Management has transformed from an old-school family office writing options on Swiss shares to a digital evangelist in its income strategy aiming to yield 8% a year. Just like in stocks, the investing style sells derivatives to take advantage of big demand to hedge price swings – which causes the volatility priced into options to be higher than what’s likely to come to pass.

For option writers like St. Gotthard, that means the premiums are much juicier, though they also come with a higher risk of having to actually pay out, like an insurer during an earthquake.

“The major difference at the end of the day is how much premium retail investors are willing to pay,” says chief investment officer Daniel Egger. “On the other hand of course we’ve written calls we wished we hadn’t in those moves up.”

In fact, going long crypto over the past year has proved the easiest and most profitable way to tap into the boom. And for those choosing the systematic route, competition is rising.

For example, in order to get an edge in its market-making strategy, BKCoin has recently installed servers at Asian crypto exchanges, a move known as co-location in the high-frequency world of stocks. It’s a sign the industry is growing up fast.

“In any emerging market we’ve seen these inefficiencies decrease over time,” said George Zarya, founder of Bequant, a crypto prime brokerage that caters to systematic traders. “There are more professional players that come in.”

(Updates first chart and market value in first paragraph. An earlier version corrected the seventh paragraph under the second chart to show Fasanara does not engage in momentum and stat-arb trades but says they are common in industry.)

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©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Four experts told us their long-term predictions for bitcoin — and the most crucial information that crypto novices need to know

Bitcoin is rapidly gaining popularity but many observers are concerned about its volatility.

Insider spoke to four crypto experts to understand what the future holds.

The experts also shared the most crucial information that beginners should know before investing.

See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Bitcoin is rapidly gaining popularity as many look to the cryptocurrency as a valid medium of exchange or storehold.

But the digital unit of currency has its drawbacks. Its volatility is widely recognized among many, which has led investors, including Warren Buffet, to criticize it and other cryptocurrencies as “risky” and “worthless.” And now, with the recent rollout of China’s digital currency, discussions about bitcoin’s vulnerability are gaining momentum.

Insider spoke to four finance experts about their predictions for the currency.

Brock Pierce, the former ‘Mighty Ducks’ star turned crypto titan

When asked where he sees bitcoin in ten years' time, Pierce seemed bullish while also taking a swipe at the US government’s fiscal decisions.

He said: “After seeing the growth of bitcoin in the last six months (market cap exceeding $1 trillion), I’m very optimistic about the future growth of this technology. Our government’s poor monetary choices (overprinting, excessive spending, etc…) only work in bitcoin’s favor — and from what we’ve seen in the last year, there’s no sign of slowing down.”

For Pierce, the crypto landscape has drastically changed since its inception. But according to him, a major attraction of the cryptocurrency is the fact that “every transaction that has ever occurred is put on an open — public ledger making fraudulent applications nearly impossible.”

This is why he added, “if you haven’t done research on bitcoin or Blockchain technology — I would urge you to do so!”

James Ledbetter, editor, and publisher of the fintech newsletter, FIN

As fears loom over the effect of China’s newly launched digital yuan on bitcoin, Ledbetter said: “In general, the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) can be viewed as an encroachment on bitcoin’s territory. If the digital yuan gains wide acceptance, it may discourage some people in China and elsewhere from investing in bitcoin.”

With a new wave of young people investing in the cryptocurrency, he added: “It scares me if people are getting into the bitcoin market because consciously or unconsciously they think it will never go down.”

This is among some of the reasons why people “should never invest more in any given asset than you can afford to lose,” Ledbetter added.

Joey Krug, co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital

The reason why young people are investing in bitcoin is down to the fact that, in general, younger people tend to hold assets farther out on the risk curve than other groups, said Krug.

Young people see the government printing trillions in fiscal stimulus, threatening to rapidly debase the US dollar, Krug explained. Meanwhile, they have an increasingly strong sense that opportunities for socio-economic advancement are becoming fewer and harder to come by. “The result is that far more young people today own bitcoin than they own gold. That trend is not going to reverse,” he added.

Krug laid out three key areas for novices to pay attention to. He said: “First, remember that bitcoin could go down 70% or more. Second, know that it could go up many multiples of that.”

Finally, “in light of #1 and #2 — figure out an investment size that will allow you to hold bitcoin without driving yourself crazy or losing sleep over each short-term price swing,” he said.

He added that “if you buy too much relative to your other assets, you will inevitably panic and sell when it does go down. Bitcoin investing is a long game, and it isn’t for the faint of heart.”

Lucy Gazmararian, founder and managing partner at Token Bay Capital

“Today, bitcoin is increasingly being viewed as ‘digital gold’ due to its scarcity value as there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in existence,” according to Gazmararian.

In terms of how bitcoin will be faring in five to ten years' time, she thinks it’s conceivable it could become the world’s reserve asset. She said: “There are early signs of this happening today with corporates around the world beginning to add bitcoin to their balance sheets.”

She added that money is set to become “a far more complex payment instrument than it’s ever been before,” with the onset of digital currencies.

This is because, in her view, it looks as though CBDCs, cryptocurrencies, and other digital representations of value will eventually interoperate seamlessly within our digital economy.

When asked about the essential information potential investors should know, Gazmararian highlighted two key points. “Develop your own view on this new technology and get clear on why you are holding it,” she explained.

She also believes “there are distinct operational risks associated with holding bitcoin “as it’s a purely virtual currency and can be stolen from your digital wallet if your private key gets into the hands of a nefarious actor.”