• Bitcoin ETF

    The first one the SEC let pass. Gensler hinted he's more comfortable with trading on an regulated futures exchanges like NYSE (where the Bitcoin ETF 'Proshares,' BITO, owned by ProFunds Group [$58b under management] is listed) than on Binance and that type of exchange.

    BITO is not based on actual Bitcoin, but rather on futures contracts, and filed under mutual funds rules that provide significant investor protections, according to SEC. The product already exists, and this is just a repackaging, and if something goes wrong the SEC knows how to deal with it and knows how to intervene.

    The futures in BITO are a bet on the price of bitcoin, without having to actually store bitcoin, so there's no risk of theft of coins or loss of passwords. If bitcoin goes down in price, your money goes to pay those who took the other side of the bet.

    The risk is taken by the arbitrageur who holds bitcoins he buys for full price plus a margin of 1/3rd. Ie a bitcoin which costs $60k means $80k for him. They do this because they charge for this service.

    The return for you of buying BITO is less than buying Bitcoin. It will tend to trade about 8% above the price of bitcoin. (Right now this premium is about 15%.) The ETF's management fee is about 1%.

    So why is this product even necessary? Some experts say 'institutional money.' Boomer investors who will never get a crypto wallet even if it's easy to do, but who have money to invest and want to put it in bitcoin. Josh Brown recently said Chicago investment culture is such that they would approve an ETF for anything as long as they thought people would put their money into it, or something like that.

    Bitcoin up steadily over the past months from it's 25k low (or 30 I forget) and is now at $55k (up several percent since BITO dropped).

      
  • Lots of talk about billionaires not paying taxes

    No one knows how the journalists at ProPublica got hold of tax records for several years for some of the richest Americans.

    Bezos, Musk, Soros, Buffet, etc., paid what appear to be small dollar figures in income tax for certain years (some years $0, some years around $70k were the most quoted figures, dating back to the year 2011). This is because they don't generally make income (particularly when you're talking about each year). Instead, they hold assets. Their largest asset is generally company stock, which is only taxed if it is sold (capital gains). Some years, they need to raise cash and so they take loans against their assets. This is not taxable.

     

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