DLATITUDE252 A process is currently in place to transfer both assets to the creditors of the closed Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange. This is how a few dealers are handling it.
To profit from the ongoing Mt. Gox repayments, Singapore-based trading firm Presto Labs advises clients to wager on the strength of bitcoin (BTC) and against bitcoin cash (BCH) in a market-neutral trade.
As the long-awaited payouts to creditors affected by the 2014 attack on the now-defunct exchange Mt. Gox finally started last week, hundreds of millions of Bitcoin flooded the market. In contrast to the $9 billion worth of BTC that will be handed to dealers in the upcoming months, more than $73 million worth of BCH is anticipated.
Between July 1 and October 31, 2024, the Mt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee intends to distribute BTCs and BCHs valued at billions of dollars, Presto market analysts under the direction of Peter Chung informed CoinDesk in a note on Wednesday. During the course of these four months, this may cause a change in the dynamics of supply and demand for BTC and BCH, possibly creating a chance for pair trading.
COMMERCIAL
Buying and selling two financial assets at the same time in order to capitalize on their respective price changes is known as pair trading.
According to our analysis, there will be four times as much selling pressure for BCH as there will be for BTC, or 24% of BCH’s daily trading value compared to 6% for BTC. Apart from financing rate risk, the most effective market-neutral approach to express this position is with long BTC perpetuals combined with short BCH perpetuals, according to Chung.
Over $27 billion worth of BTC, as opposed to $180 million worth of BCH, were traded in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
Presto also makes the assumption that those who invested in bitcoin early on are probably “diamond-handed wealthy Bitcoiners,” meaning they are more inclined to retain a portion of their repayments rather than selling the commodity altogether.
Nonetheless, Presto stated that 100% of BCH might be sold soon due to its “much weaker investor base.”
DISCLOSURE
Award-winning media source CoinDesk covers the cryptocurrency space. Its journalists adhere to a rigid code of ethics. November 2023 saw the purchase of CoinDesk by the Bullish organization, who also owns Bullish, a regulated exchange for digital assets. Block.one owns the Bullish group in its whole; both organizations have stakes in a range of blockchain and digital asset ventures and possess large amounts of digital assets, such as bitcoin. Ensuring journalistic independence, CoinDesk functions as a separate entity under the guidance of an editorial committee. Journalists and other CoinDesk staff members might be compensated with Bullish group options.
So, after months of isolation and Zoom workouts, walks with friends became the new happy hour.
Prior to the lockdown, Colleen Logan, vice president of public relations and corporate communications at digital fitness platform iFIT, says the brand recognized an increase of interest in interactive walking, hiking, and running workouts, which she believes had to do with their accessibility. “We want iFIT to reach the broadest number of consumers and walking is an excellent way to connect with the most people,” she explains. In hopes of feeding the piqued interest, the brand opted to invest resources in filming guided walks and runs in beautiful places around the world, like the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa, or up steep trails in Switzerland. The timing couldn’t have been better. iFIT’s popularity soared — in November 2020, they had 330,000 paid iFIT subscribers, and now they have almost 1.5 million — and Logan thinks it primarily had to do with its unique walks, which fuse fitness and adventure with people’s need for a mental escape.
Jillian Michaels, health and wellness expert and creator of The Fitness App by Jillian Michaels, has always considered walking an underappreciated workout. “I have always known that walking is the most affordable, accessible fitness solution. For that reason, I have many programs that are either walking only or incorporate walking.”
By the end of the year, others in the fitness industry noticed that walking wasn’t just a workout — it had gotten chic. In January 2021, Apple launched its Time to Walk feature for Apple Watch and Apple Fitness+ subscribers, which the brand described as “an inspiring new audio walking experience.” Each episode featured a different celebrity taking the user on a guided walk, with early guests including Dolly Parton, Shawn Mendes, and NBA star Draymond Green.
