There is a theme being propagated on interwebs that bitcoin will never be able to get from under negative price pressure from CME/CBOE futures (which are cash-settled). Apparently, it happened multiple times before with other commodities.
Q to WO crowd: do you think that bitcoin does (or doesn't) have some futures fighting mitigation strategy?
Personally, i don't fully buy that doom-and-gloom scenario because other cryptos did not have futures, yet declined even more, hence not a clear cut picture.
Would btc-settled futures like bakkt and/or 'physical' ETF objectively helpful in this fight or not?
Of course, if some some major fiat currency would experience hyperinflation, then btc would benefit, but this scenario is not very conducive to day-to-day life.
I would prefer to think about how we can use intrinsic bitcoin properties to fight CME/CBOE pushing us down (in price).
It'd be very clear cut if Bitcoin really got tanked due to futures (which I don't buy into, since they're basically like those Turkish betting parlors all over Europe).
But let's assume that was the case, then altcoins would inevitably follow suit because the majority of their volume is denominated in BTC and thus directly following Bitcoin's price.
Furthermore, if there's any indicator that Bitcoin will be tanking it would be fairly easy to short alts for fiat and then rebuy alts at a cheaper per BTC rate with cheaper Bitcoins (obviously comes with elevated risks).
Basically, Bitcoin down = make double the money by shorting shitcoins. So the connection between futures tanking Bitcoin and altcoins tanking even more is crystal clear once you crunch the numbers.
Again though, I don't buy that futures had anything to do with anything. They were just there at the "right" time to appear to be relevant. You don't rally from 1k to 19k without a massive correction.