Throughout my experience with defi/cefi, I'd say the biggest red flag I've seen is with Celsius. here are some reason:

Somehow they manage to give very good interest rates on WAY more tokens then any other site even offers.

Tether loaned them $1 billion

They invested over $200 million in bitcoin mining equipment. (I don't get how using peoples deposits to speculate on bitcoin mining seems legit.)

Whenever I'm reading on reddit, I've seen Celsius plugged so many times in comments for how great it is. (Possible influencers)

There is no fee to withdraw and you can withdraw however many times you want. With the super high network fees for transactions, how the hell can I withdraw $100 USDT at a time? If they pay $10-$60 for the transaction?

I had no issues with withdrawing from them, but everything points towards this one going belly up at some point down the road.

This screams REKT, but I'm a pleb to the plebiest.

Are there any (ref) bonusses on Ledn?

Users get a referral code for friends to sign up with and receive $10 worth of USDC for each referral. Not sure if the new sign ups gets anything, but judging by the pittance offered for referrals, I doubt it would be much.

Sounds like an accounting headache. What amounts and return rates make it worth it to you?

MeleaB, straight LOLOL gold and just straight pwnage the past few pages... WP Sir.

Here we may discuss OKCOIN, a bitcoin trading site. The currency of the future? A threat or a goldmine? I want relevant example of their wrongs and rights and then i will share my experience. I think that they have potential. However I have not finalized an opinion.

It is vital to trade.

What makes okcoin different from the other trading platform?

I wouldn't put any faith into any crypto trading program that uses HODL in their marketing.

My theory on BTC - as market cap grows the US government will step in and regulate it at some point to protect USD as well as the millions lost in tax revenue. Once the US regulates it, the value will plunge as anonymous trading won't be possible. I think crypto has value on some level so I don't see it disappearing, but the SEC has already engaged in lawsuits against crypto operators so its just a matter of time. Curious to hear intelligent counter arguments

Be curious to hear an intelligent argument first

Fair question.Firstly, I'm not liable in my current circumstances to either CGT or additional income tax which reduces the accounting headache somewhat. This is purely regarding expectation.

I'm mid 30's, have a $100k/yr job, 4 BTC and about half that value in other crypto. I could very well just do nothing for 5-10 years or so and hopefully have a couple of mill if BTC hits the targets we believe it will. I say that not to brag, but just to illustrate that downside isn't something I'm particularly worried about as I have a solid base. It's really about attempting to increase upside in an asset that I have a high conviction in, but attempting to do that in a way that limits the possibility of being liquidated and isn't dependent on time frame predictions. When you see wicks down to $10k on Binance.us, thats not a trivial matter.

If we think that BTC is going higher from here to > $100k and ETH is going > $10k as somewhat conservative targets, it just seems too good an opportunity to pass up. I'd be looking to long here and then TP at the first sign of real weakness (probably around $100k BTC) so 1 BTC w/ 2x leverage nets ~$70k on that move. Thats actually more than I have put in to build my portfolio. Additionally, loaning against BTC and purchasing ETH seems to be a pretty good long on the ETHBTC ratio given that it seems a no brainer that ETH outperforms BTC over the remainder of the bull run. The only way this trade goes south* that I can see is if both collapsed in USD value, which seems unlikely (particularly if we assume a 25% LTV ratio).

*Counter party risk acknowledged

If you have a 100k job you can probably access 50-100k lines of credits. Do multiple demand all in the same day and you can access multiple hundred k. I would use those instead of using leverage that is backed by a volatile asset. And you're also taking on custody risk with such leverage.. I don't get it.

Atleast if btc crashes 80% and you have fiat debt it doesnt change anything for you (basically do what saylor did).

I became disillusioned by leverage pretty early on. Even if you know with say >97% certainty that BTC/ETH are going to be worth more in 5 years than they are today (which I think is a reasonable prediction tbh), that doesn't say **** about what path BTC/ETH will take to get there. If it dips 70% on the upwards trajectory, you can get totally wiped on your positions.

Furthermore, even if you're some kind of blessed genius at predicting markets, some whale at any point or whatever can have ridiculously massive influence on a market and do lightning fast sales to liquidate longs and profit among many other things that happen in unregulated markets. And you have to factor in these types of things that are assuredly -EV for the common man as one of many forms of rake you are competing against, also assuming the time spent doing these tasks is actually just $0 to you.

There is that great saying that Charlie Munger said, where the only way that smart men go broke is by "Ladies, Liquor and Leverage". In these spaces, I couldn't agree more.

Granted, for those that successfully pull off whatever successfully, all the more props to them. Although I think the only / most secure way to gamble on the future of Bitcoin is if you can simply leverage assets against cheap fiat loans. The most obvious example would be if someone owned 100% of their home. They could refinance and get 80% back from the bank and real low interest, plop that into BTC/ETH, outperform the loan interest by leaps and bounds long term, with an absurdly low chance of liquidations along the way.

'NOT THIS SHYTE AGAIN!'

A fundamental misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is...

What do you mean by millions in lost tax revenue?

US crypto exchanges are already heavily regulated. You can't deposit/withdraw USD to/from exchanges without extreme KYC requirements. Nothing has been anonymous in years. Did you just copy and paste this post from 2016? They just approved a Bitcoin ETF ffs.

Great quote. We just saw BTC dip >50% in a bull market. You'd think that would be enough to dissuade any non-genius level traders from using leverage.

HODL is a good stance. It is safe to say it's not going anywhere. You can withdraw money for expenses and lavish lifestyle and it will not be considered insider trading. Where do you get off making fun of okcoin?

I’m curious about this as well.

He's implying that people aren't paying taxes on their crypto, which is likely largely true

There are still exchanges out there without KYC verification. It would not be that hard to move crypto in chunks from a more "trusted" exchange and sell them on a less known exchange into tether and send them to a third "trusted" exchange and withdraw to your bank account. There are also mixers and other stuff, but there are ways to avoid taxes in ways that isn't easy to do with regular currency in brokerages because that money is reported to the IRS. I'm not sure how this would work in other countries outside of the US, but I wouldn't think it a stretch to think there are pathways out there also. Maybe it is harder for HNWI, but for most people it wouldn't be that hard to slip under the radar.

I don't think the tax evasion FUD is completely unwarranted, but overall a lot of those people would still hold crypto regardless so I'm not thinking it would tank the market. Servers at restaurants don't always pay taxes on the tips they receive if it is cash. Maybe that factors into part of the reason why governments are wanting to go more digital rather than physical cash. Maybe also to reduce costs of minting physical currency. If the government found a way to tax server's cash tips I think a majority of servers would still keep their jobs.

The infrastructure bill accounts for 29 billion in crypto taxes, so they doing alright on that front.

Which would you recommend? I see Ledn is good for 6.25% but only up to 1BTC now (it was apparently 2BTC even just a few days ago per this thread)

If you want a return on your bitcoin I would use the futures to do it yourself. It's called cash & carry. March futures contract are in contango (meaning price is higher than spot) for ~15% annualized return. Deribit June contract is ~13% return annualized. This is pretty much a riskfree arb, where the biggest risk is the collateral you need to post at your exchange.

This isn't that hard to do at all since it's just an arb. You just need to figure out the specific mechanics of executing this trade.

Sidenote: I wouldn't do this myself because ~15% annualized isn't attractive to me compared to holding bitcoin. But I can see how people with less conviction would find this attractive.

This doesn’t give you a return on your bitcoin it gives you a return on your dollars.

If you hold bitcoin and sell futures against it at a 15% premium you no longer have a bitcoin exposure: you now have dollars with a locked in interest rate (although due to margining it is a bit more complicated)