Paolo ArdoinoVerified account

Assignment: what story explains this? Please use character development and quantitative reasoning. 5 paragraphs, 2 pages double spaced.https://twitter.com/thalamu_/status/1212631422407569409 …

(If you want to email info@alameda-research.com, we’ll give an interview to anyone who can tell the full story!)

1/ Some people gave most of the story here. b) BTC/USD becomes rich on Bitfinex c) people send BTC to Bitfinex d) people sell BTC for USD on Bitfinex e) people withdraw USD from Bitfinex f) people send USD to other exchanges g) people buy BTC, completing the arb

2/ This means that crypto is moving in and fiat is moving out, thus the net BTC inflows. Note that selling BTC/USDT does *not* explain this. (a) you would likely just see USDT crypto outflows; (b) the BTC/USDT arb is generally kept in line between BFX and other exchanges.

3/ So that's most of the story. But we're missing the character development. I started at (b). What's (a)?

this would mean premium is caused by whales accumulating longs & seems to counter-trade price action which you'd expect of whales. i don't buy the arb argument. finex has had ~$50m avg. 1d vol. past 30d. $300m surplus of inflow:outflow over same period (+$10m surplus / day)

with that kind of volume, i believe the arb would have been eaten up by now. also -- if the argument is arb is maintained and exploited by the same parties... that further casts doubt as there isn't enough meat on the bone with current volume to run an op like that imo.