Over to you crypto fanboys

[Susco]

2 minutes ago, Logosone said:

That means I do not have to hold crypto to make money from crypto, and I can also short BTC, so if it falls I can make money, and if it goes up I can make money.

 

Sure you sound like a winner, only you lose when it goes up when you have shorted it, and vice versa.

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, GrandPapillon said:

and that's the core of problem,

 

trading a volatile asset is one thing, and traders might have strategies to ride those waves and avoid "walls", but that's the definition of a trading strategy, not really risk management for engaging with a particular asset, like banks and professional asset managers do.

 

What happens when you are trying to "play" a rigged game, because at the end, that's what it is. It's unsecure, unregulated, exposed to market manipulation and "trading strategies" seems have to a very short life. You really don't want to be exposed or fall in love with any of those cryptos when the <deleted> hits the fan ???? and no trading strategies or stop loss trading strategies are going to save you from that black hole or fat tail risk.

 

This post is basically almost all wrong.

 

For a start, you can't compete with banks. I mean that's impossible and you just have to accept that. Your trading strategy and risk management can never be the same as that of a bank. I mean that's freakin' obvious.

 

However, professional asset managers use exactly the same risk management strategies as small forex traders use, they use stop loss, and have a trading plan which involves not losing more than that plan is good for.

 

As for trading strategies having a very short life, that's just not true. There are trading strategies that have been around for 100 years or more. Mine is nearing 100 years now. What changes is market conditions, so at certain times certain strategies will perform better.

 

Let's address this point of total failure, even if all cryptos failed entirely a good trading strategy would still have protected you. Because you would not have placed a trade greater than you can afford to lose. And you would have withdrawn profits, so if you were to lose your account, the profits are in your bank.

 

Now whilst a stop loss works in 99% of cases, in the 1% of cases where the market overwhelms the stop loss you can still close it manually. And if you can't and you rack up a giant loss with a broker, you just change broker and open a new account. The odds of them finding you and suing you for the full exposure of systemic loss is extremely small. They'd have terrible cards to get new clients and they actually don't do that.

 

I mean one could equally say, what if you have a heart attack, you lose everything and should therefore never trade or do anything. I mean it's stupid, and letting fear take over to an unwarranted degree.

 

[Logosone]

15 minutes ago, Susco said:

 

Sure you sound like a winner, only you lose when it goes up when you have shorted it, and vice versa.

 

You should learn my two key trading principles:

 

1. The problem with trading is not in a losing trade, but in failing to cut the losses or add to a losing position

 

2. It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.

 

Bearing the above in mind, you lose fear of losses. You accept losses. As an inevitable part of trading. Trading is a wonderful profession, because it teaches humility, it teaches you can not always be right. Even though I have 70% winners, I still have 30% losses. 

 

Again, the key is not to avoid losses, but rather to avoid losing money when you have losses, so you limit trades to a certain amount of money, and when they fail you walk away. Now, that is very hard to do, granted, but that is the key to being profitable as a trader.

 

You can have 70% wins and still be a loser. In that you win 70% of trades, but your wins are very small and your losses are smaller in number but much bigger in size. It's basic arithmetic, it's psychology, it's planning, and it's humility. You need to have the discipline to let winning trades run, and close them only when the stop loss is hit, or your take profit is hit, but then forget about it, and not throw money after the losing trade. It's not hard to be a winner theoretically, it's the psychology that's hard.

[gearbox]

2 hours ago, Why Me said:

 

I am sure there is an art to playing the game. But my point wasn't about that. What I was saying is that the ball everyone's chasing in this game is an intrinsically worthless currency. This fact can blow up any instant and leave a lot of dead investors.

 

 

I don't think there would be a lot of "dead" investors. I suspect hardly anyone of the crypto fans in this thread has put a 7 digit value or more in crypto.

It is the same as the lottery. Technically at each lottery draw most of the participants lose 100% of their investments, and a few get returns of digits with many zeroes.

So say you set up a new crypto with a friend, then you convince 1 million suckers to put $100,  that's 100 millions for you and your friend, the suckers will lose $100 each, not a big deal. They won't pursue class action for losing $100.

 

[Why Me]

1 hour ago, Logosone said:

A lot of financial instruments are "intrinsically worthless" in the sense of not being backed directly by real assets, that doesn't just apply to crypto. That applies to pretty much all of Forex trading, if you look at any pair even EUR/USD, that pair in and of itself has no "intrinsic worth"

Almost all instruments traded on reputable exchanges have intrinsic worth. E.g., if I own Apple or Netflix or Tesla I own a tangible product or service provider.  As for USD, it is backed by the Federal Reserve's commitment to maintain a stable reasonable value for the currency. And the Feds are backed by the full faith and credit of the US Govt. for what that's worth.

 

Crypto is none of this. This is why it is intrinsically worthless. Like the broken chair in my bedroom I pile clothes on. But if you come along and want it for $1000 I'll sell it to you. Nothing illegal in that transaction. And then if you turn around and sell it to someone else for $2000 more power to you. You are a smart man who turned a profit on a worthless item.

 

1 hour ago, Logosone said:

Even corporates, I mean Lehman Brothers was a corporate entity backed by 600 million worth of assets. Yet it still blew up.

Lehman brothers blew up in the subprime meltdown because because mortgage-backed securities were priced and bought for by many for much more than they were intrinsically worth. And when the market went, wait a minute this is what they are really worth so why should we pay more,  Lehman (and others) were left with hundreds of billions in liability.

 

But those securities did have an intrinsic worth. Just that those who overestimated this and overpaid were screwed. Crypto has intrinsic worth zero which is why cautions is advised in putting anything in.

 

Still I wouldn't call crypto a Ponzi scheme like Krugman. Ponzi schemes are illegal. But it's not illegal to sell even a broken chair for millions if there is a buyer. And there are people getting rich off crypto because they are smart enough always to unload the chair in a timely manner.

 

But go in with your eyes open. It is an asset whose value derives solely from the Greater Fool Theory.

[Why Me]

Deleted.

[Why Me]

39 minutes ago, gearbox said:

 

 

I don't think there would be a lot of "dead" investors. I suspect hardly anyone of the crypto fans in this thread has put a 7 digit value or more in crypto.

It is the same as the lottery. Technically at each lottery draw most of the participants lose 100% of their investments, and a few get returns of digits with many zeroes.

So say you set up a new crypto with a friend, then you convince 1 million suckers to put $100,  that's 100 millions for you and your friend, the suckers will lose $100 each, not a big deal. They won't pursue class action for losing $100.

 

That's a good strategy to invest in crypto. As if buying a lottery ticket. If you get lucky you get rich. If not who gives a rat's.

[ozimoron]

5 minutes ago, Why Me said:

But go in with your eyes open. It is an asset whose value derives solely from the Greater Fool Theory.

What is the intrinsic value of gold? or the Mona Lisa? How are they different from an NFT or bitcoin?

[Why Me]

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

What is the intrinsic value of gold? or the Mona Lisa? How are they different from an NFT or bitcoin?

Good question. Intrinsically worthless all of them. But there is a difference. Gold and fine art have had demand, therefore value, for centuries so one can reasonably say that their value will remain in the foreseeable future. Can one say this about crypto?

 

Here's a simple test. Would you put your savings for retirement in 20 years in (a) gold (b) fine art (c) S&P 500 index (d) bit coins? If enough people answer (d) then crypto has arrived. Right now there's no sign of this. It's purely speculative short-term play. Buy and hope you can sell Friday for a profit.

[ozimoron]

2 minutes ago, Why Me said:

Good question. Intrinsically worthless all of them. But there is a difference. Gold and fine art have had demand, therefore value, for centuries so one can reasonably say that their value will remain in the foreseeable future. Can one say this about crypto?

Absolutely yes. If something that has been around for 15 years attracts a price of $30,000 per unit it definitely has demand. Bitcoins can be lost but never destroyed.

[Logosone]

3 minutes ago, Why Me said:

Good question. Intrinsically worthless all of them. But there is a difference. Gold and fine art have had demand, therefore value, for centuries so one can reasonably say that their value will remain in the foreseeable future. Can one say this about crypto?

 

Here's a simple test. Would you put your savings for retirement in 20 years in (a) gold (b) fine art (c) S&P 500 index (d) bit coins? If enough people answer (d) then crypto has arrived. Right now there's no sign of this. It's purely speculative short-term play. Buy and hope you can sell Friday for a profit.

 

 

Yes you can say that, there currently is demand for Crypto, a lot of it, and there will remain demand in the foreseeable future, because people love the idea of instant bank transfers, fraud impossibility, independence etc.

 

You're right that gold, etc are preferable assets for now.

 

Ultimately worth is what people are willing to pay for something. A hell of a lot of people are willing to pay for bitcoin right now. Shares are speculative, Forex pairs are, pretty much everthing. We live in a short term world. This is the place we arrived at.

[Logosone]

49 minutes ago, Why Me said:

Almost all instruments traded on reputable exchanges have intrinsic worth. E.g., if I own Apple or Netflix or Tesla I own a tangible product or service provider.  As for USD, it is backed by the Federal Reserve's commitment to maintain a stable reasonable value for the currency. And the Feds are backed by the full faith and credit of the US Govt. for what that's worth.

 

Crypto is none of this. This is why it is intrinsically worthless. Like the broken chair in my bedroom I pile clothes on. But if you come along and want it for $1000 I'll sell it to you. Nothing illegal in that transaction. And then if you turn around and sell it to someone else for $2000 more power to you. You are a smart man who turned a profit on a worthless item.

 

Lehman brothers blew up in the subprime meltdown because because mortgage-backed securities were priced and bought for by many for much more than they were intrinsically worth. And when the market went, wait a minute this is what they are really worth so why should we pay more,  Lehman (and others) were left with hundreds of billions in liability.

 

But those securities did have an intrinsic worth. Just that those who overestimated this and overpaid were screwed. Crypto has intrinsic worth zero which is why cautions is advised in putting anything in.

 

Still I wouldn't call crypto a Ponzi scheme like Krugman. Ponzi schemes are illegal. But it's not illegal to sell even a broken chair for millions if there is a buyer. And there are people getting rich off crypto because they are smart enough always to unload the chair in a timely manner.

 

But go in with your eyes open. It is an asset whose value derives solely from the Greater Fool Theory.

 

And what is the "intrinsic worth" of derivatives? It's the difference between the underlying asset price and the strike price. What is the "intrinsic worth" of the EUR/USD Forex pair? It is determined by sale and buy pricing. However, a derivative is a financial instrument that of itself has no intrinsic value, it is derived from an underlying asset. 

 

The Asset backed securities you mentioned are another good example. Essentially it was complete smoke and mirrors. An originator would set up a Cayman Islands SPV, sell an asset, say mortages, loans, or David Bowie's song catalogue, to the SPV and then issue shares which rating agencies had to value at top lettering. However, those ABS were essentially worthless, as we all found out.

 

If you hold shares in Apple you essentially hold a piece of paper. In and of itself that piece of paper has no "intrinsic value". The value is derived from the rules of the game, the trust that if you have the paper you can participate in Apple dividends. Equally if Apple has a misstep and goes the way of General Motors you'd quickly find that that piece of paper, that "asset" had no value, or very little value.

 

The same applies to bitcoins, you have value due to the rules of the game, bitcoin is valuable and everyone understands it will continue to be valuable, within certain fluctuations. Of course like Gold Bitcoin itself produces not income, dividends, however, like Gold the appreciation and desirability of Bitcoin are the draw.

 

Anyway, it does not matter to me, if Bitcoin were to disappear, I trade many other assets, pairs, currencies, indices, but it is sure is nice to have this particular crypto to add to the money making options.

[Why Me]

Again. to both gentlemen above, would you today park your savings for retirement in 20 years in bit coin? You might say yes but most would say no because basically it's worthless and it's not clear if any coin will acquire the cachet of gold or art.

 

Right now it's a gold rush. But most miners will end up being picked apart by buzzards:

 

[Logosone]

2 minutes ago, Why Me said:

Again. to both gentlemen above, would you today park your savings for retirement in 20 years in bit coin? You might say yes but most would say no because basically it's worthless and it's not clear if any coin will acquire the cachet of gold or art.

 

Right now it's a gold rush. But most miners will end up being picked apart by buzzards:

 

 

I tell you one thing, I had a lot of money two years ago. I seriously wish I had put it all in bitcoin. In the space of a year I could have made a million Euro.

 

Of course Bitcoin is more risky than gold. That's why Bitcoin appreciated 600%. More risk more gain.

 

Is it the safest investment? Obviously not. But that's not the guiding consideration when you want to make money necessarily. Most people accept that to make money you have to be prepared to run some risk.

[Why Me]

5 minutes ago, Logosone said:

I tell you one thing, I had a lot of money two years ago. I seriously wish I had put it all in bitcoin. In the space of a year I could have made a million Euro.

I had to laugh at this. Seriously:-) Let me tell you a story. When I was a grad student in the US early 90s I had a friend named Steve. Steve failed his quals, I scraped through by the skin of my nails. So he went back home to Toledo to work for a local software company called Foxbase. Which was soon bought by a piddling upstart called Microsoft and Steve had to move to Seattle a rainy town he hated.

 

Then I graduated and got a faculty position. We compared salaries. I made more as a prof than him. He got paid in company stock because revenues were yet to pick up,  which <deleted> him off because he had little cash in hand and a family to raise. He jokingly asked if I wanted to take Microsoft shares off him. We both laughed:-)

 

Well, you can guess the ending. 20 years on Steve own homes on both coasts, a getaway near Milan, retired early and travels the world. Do I wish I had invested in Microsoft in 1991? Well, hindsight in 20/20.

 

To balance this story I'll admit to buying Redhat shares worth $20k late 90s and selling them for $3k a few months later. Helped as a tax write-off though.

 

In any case, good luck with coins. Just be careful.

[Logosone]

11 minutes ago, Why Me said:

I had to laugh at this. Seriously:-) Let me tell you a story. When I was a grad student in the US early 90s I had a friend named Steve. Steve failed his quals, I scraped through by the skin of my nails. So he went back home to Toledo to work for a local software company called Foxbase. Which was soon bought by a piddling upstart called Microsoft and Steve had to move to Seattle a rainy town he hated.

 

Then I graduated and got a faculty position. We compared salaries. I made more as a prof than him. He got paid in company stock because revenues were yet to pick up,  which <deleted> him off because he had little cash in hand and a family to raise. He jokingly asked if I wanted to take Microsoft shares off him. We both laughed:-)

 

Well, you can guess the ending. 20 years on Steve own homes on both coasts, a getaway near Milan, retired early and travels the world. Do I wish I had invested in Microsoft in 1991? Well, hindsight in 20/20.

 

To balance this story I'll admit to buying Redhat shares worth $20k late 90s and selling them for $3k a few months later. Helped as a tax write-off though.

 

In any case, good luck with coins. Just be careful.

 

You never know until the story ends. Maybe Steve will have an accident in his Porsche Taycan and you'll be laughing.

 

But yah. I was lucky to get a job at the highest paying City law firm when I started out, worked the oldest Wall street firm, top City firms, I earned a few million which I mostly spent,  but I wish I'd learned Forex trading at 18. I  would be very rich now. Better late than never though, and I will teach it to my daughter, who I have no worry about now, she will always be able to make money with Forex.

 

I am not buying bitcoin, precisly because I'm risk averse. But I'm not that risk averse that I would not trade BTC/USD. I love trading forex and it has been incredibly good money.

[Why Me]

15 minutes ago, Logosone said:

You never know until the story ends. Maybe Steve will have an accident in his Porsche Taycan and you'll be laughing.

Jeez, no. I love him. Nicest guy on the planet. Smokers then both of us and countless hours spent sharing cigs and shooting the breeze. He deserves all the luck that's come his way.

 

Me? I haven't done too shabbily either. After getting bitten in a couple of investments (like Redhat) I learned my lesson and settled down to staid steady non-flash investing and am worth plenty now. So, I give a rat's about coins and stuff. My problem isn't making money. It's spending all this sh*t sitting in my Fidelity acs. And which is why I tell anyone who cares to listen that slow and steady pays in the long run and never ever sell in a recession.

[Susco]

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

What is the intrinsic value of gold? or the Mona Lisa? How are they different from an NFT or bitcoin?

From gold I can make jewels for myself, and it is also used in most electronic devices.

 

A  painting is decoration and looks nice on the wall. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you know.

 

Bitcoin I can't even touch, so even as a weight belt to drown myself because I lost everything, it would be no use

[Why Me]

4 minutes ago, Susco said:

Bitcoin I can't even touch, so even as a weight belt to drown myself because I lost everything, it would be no use

555. You, sir, are a comedian.

[chalawaan]

I'm waiting for the inevitable blood on the streets, and then I'll grab me some of the thrid generation cryptos, and manage them in the same style Mr. Wonderful from shark tank balances his stock portfolio. It's a long haul. Now is not the time to pile in. The poor sods that have been wiped out in a month buying around $50K BTC with no clue, other than thinking it will crack a ton by xmas, it may, but not before it whipsaws the pigs to death,. Many of these unfortunates have to bail because they YOLOd and seeing half your lifesavings vanish overnight if youre a newb is terrifying. Diamond hands is easy if you bought way below the peak, for everyone else spending money they cant afford to lose, hodling isnt so easy.

[ozimoron]

2 minutes ago, Susco said:

Bitcoin I can't even touch, so even as a weight belt to drown myself because I lost everything, it would be no use

Nor can you touch intellectual property which is probably the greatest store of value in the modern world. Inability to touch something is not an argument against it's value. The price of gold was one artificially pegged at $30 and could easily return to being worthless, as could bitcoin. In fact, bitcoin currently has about a 50/50 chance of being worth $2,000 or less in the very near future. Its main advantage is that it has appreciated about a million percent more than the S&P 500 since its invention.

[sharksy]

1 hour ago, Why Me said:

Almost all instruments traded on reputable exchanges have intrinsic worth. E.g., if I own Apple or Netflix or Tesla I own a tangible product or service provider.  As for USD, it is backed by the Federal Reserve's commitment to maintain a stable reasonable value for the currency. And the Feds are backed by the full faith and credit of the US Govt. for what that's worth.

 

Crypto is none of this. This is why it is intrinsically worthless. 

I remember years ago, the telecoms giant, Vodafone.  Stupidly high share price, yet every year is was losing BILLIONS.
Why would anyone want to pay big money for something that was in debt?

 

Potential....

[Why Me]

3 minutes ago, sharksy said:

I remember years ago, the telecoms giant, Vodafone.  Stupidly high share price, yet every year is was losing BILLIONS.
Why would anyone want to pay big money for something that was in debt?

 

Potential....

Yep. I remember MCI too. Used to be a subscriber. The 'orrible customer service and billing malpractices should have warned people off. Instead investors lost their shirt when it went belly up and CEO Ebbers went to prison.

[Logosone]

32 minutes ago, Susco said:

From gold I can make jewels for myself, and it is also used in most electronic devices.

 

A  painting is decoration and looks nice on the wall. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you know.

 

Bitcoin I can't even touch, so even as a weight belt to drown myself because I lost everything, it would be no use

 

Well that's not true though, is it? Bitcoin is attractive because it offers instant money transfer, safety, independence from banks, regulators, you can use it to buy things. It is useful and it is attractive. And it will not go away.

 

Could Soros touch his winning Forex trade when he broke the Bank of England? No he could not. Still had 2 billion in the fund account though. If you can touch something or not is not relevant to value. Unless you're in Nana.

[Heng]

2 hours ago, Susco said:

Bitcoin I can't even touch, so even as a weight belt to drown myself because I lost everything, it would be no use

 

You can certainly touch/drive/ride/and live in the things you can buy with it....       But if we're talking strictly intrinsic value, I'd say portability....through deserts, airports, away from one's wife, invisible to most thieves...  

[GrandPapillon]

19 hours ago, Logosone said:

 

I look at risk management purely from a trading perspective. I don't hold much crypto coin itself, so if someone did steal them it would be irrelevant, I make money trading crypto pairs like BTC/USD. That means I do not have to hold crypto to make money from crypto, and I can also short BTC, so if it falls I can make money, and if it goes up I can make money.

 

Someone stealing my USB drive? My drives are all backed up in triplicate, I own three laptops, and all are set up to trade with the same software and drives. Just in case.

 

Exchanges collapsing? Come on, man. I don't need an exchange to trade BTC/USD, forex trading is outside stock exchange regulation or other exchange regulation. All I needs is Metatrader 5, Ctrader, and an account with a broker.

 

Of course brokers can collapse. If that happens you are indeed screwed, but there is a way around that. Say you triple your account, as I have done, you then take out the profits and put them on your bank account and only trade with your original account. So you if you lose you don't lose everything.

 

But trading risk management is much more difficult and more interesting.

 

are you trading exclusively the BTC futures on CME? I was referring to "crypto" exchanges (mostly unregulated) that regularly get raided by hackers or when the owners suddenly disappear with all their "holdings" ????

 

if you are trading on the regulated US exchanges, yes that eliminates some of the risks associated with Cryptos,

 

also, you keep mentioning pair, but buying only BTC in USD is not trading on pair, you need another asset to be trading in pair, maybe long BTC in USD and shorting Mini SP500 futures at the same time, and use the correlation to hedge your risk and boost your daily returns

 

one question: BTC future contracts are quite expensive, they have a multiple of 5x if I remember correctly, so at 40K USD for average BTC price, that's 200K a contract, and even with 4x margin account, that's still 50K a contract, and with that volatility (and low bid/ask "volume" and high spread), you probably need another 50K in equity to absorb those swings with your maintenance margin ????

 

Crypto trading not really cheap with that much equity to put up first ????

[GrandPapillon]

15 hours ago, Logosone said:

 

Well that's not true though, is it? Bitcoin is attractive because it offers instant money transfer, safety, independence from banks, regulators, you can use it to buy things. It is useful and it is attractive. And it will not go away.

 

Could Soros touch his winning Forex trade when he broke the Bank of England? No he could not. Still had 2 billion in the fund account though. If you can touch something or not is not relevant to value. Unless you're in Nana.

it will go away eventually simply because:

 

1. It costs a ton of energy and it's an ecological disaster

2. It's great for money laundering and bypassing the global banking system for all kind of criminals

 

You know regulations are just around the corner, so enjoy it while it lasts ????

[Logosone]

12 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

it will go away eventually simply because:

 

1. It costs a ton of energy and it's an ecological disaster

2. It's great for money laundering and bypassing the global banking system for all kind of criminals

 

You know regulations are just around the corner, so enjoy it while it lasts ????

 

I doubt it very much. After all we're already seeing huge advances in power technology, hydro batteries etc. A classic case of technological convergence.

 

It's great for instant money transfers as well. You can launder money with normal money, but nobody made it illegal. ML is already illegal anyway.

 

Some countries may try to regulate bitcoin out of existence but it won't work. Because another country won't. It's like when the US put in regulations that created Eurobonds in London. Another jurisdiction will run with it.

[Logosone]

20 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

 

are you trading exclusively the BTC futures on CME? I was referring to "crypto" exchanges (mostly unregulated) that regularly get raided by hackers or when the owners suddenly disappear with all their "holdings" ????

 

if you are trading on the regulated US exchanges, yes that eliminates some of the risks associated with Cryptos,

 

also, you keep mentioning pair, but buying only BTC in USD is not trading on pair, you need another asset to be trading in pair, maybe long BTC in USD and shorting Mini SP500 futures at the same time, and use the correlation to hedge your risk and boost your daily returns

 

one question: BTC future contracts are quite expensive, they have a multiple of 5x if I remember correctly, so at 40K USD for average BTC price, that's 200K a contract, and even with 4x margin account, that's still 50K a contract, and with that volatility (and low bid/ask "volume" and high spread), you probably need another 50K in equity to absorb those swings with your maintenance margin ????

 

Crypto trading not really cheap with that much equity to put up first ????

 

No I don't trade BTC futures. I as wrote here many times I trade the BTC/USD forex pair. Which is outside CME and crypto exchanges. The entire FOREX market is unregulated btw.

 

I'm not trading a pair? I don't think you understand how Forex trading works. 

 

I actually don't have to put up any equity to trade BTC/USD.

[GrandPapillon]

2 minutes ago, Logosone said:

 

No I don't trade BTC futures. I as wrote here many times I trade the BTC/USD forex pair. Which is outside CME and crypto exchanges. The entire FOREX market is unregulated btw.

 

I'm not trading a pair? I don't think you understand how Forex trading works. 

 

I actually don't have to put up any equity to trade BTC/USD.

ok you are in FOREX, buying any currency is a pair by default, I was assuming you were buying actual BTC contracts

 

yeah, those FOREX exchanges can be quite dodgy too, in the early 2000s, they were the equivalent of cryptos for bored farang expats who needed the actions ????