Daily Archives: May 15, 2018

Cryptocurrency

Blockchain Beer Vending Machine Debuts at Consensus 2018

When the history of blockchain technology is written, 2018 will be known as the year it arrived. How do we know that?

Beer.

Anheuser-Busch InBev – which makes Budweiser and Bud Light (among others) – and blockchain identity company Civic are demonstrating the first blockchain beer vending machine at Consensus 2018. Actually, Civic is doing most of the demonstrating because Consensus is the world’s most influential cryptocurrency and blockchain conference.

This vending machine is cool. If you’ve ever used your phone to pay for something with Apple Pay or Google Pay, it works a little bit like that.

Everything starts with setting up your phone. You have to download the Civic app and set up an account that verifies your age and identity. It’s almost like signing up for a digital driver’s license or ID. Once your account is created, you can use the app to verify your age at the vending machine (or any service that accepts Civic). Then you transfer some bitcoin, and the machine gives you a can of cold beer.

Civic handles the identity verification. Anheuser-Busch InBev operates the vending machines.

And it’s important that Anheuser-Busch is involved. Its beers – from television commercials to consumption – dominate American culture. And when a major sector or company embraces a new technology, it’s an early indicator that mainstream consumer acceptance is on the way.

Consider the e-commerce landscape in 1989. Yes, there was e-commerce in 1989. The web wasn’t around. But dial-up services like Prodigy, America Online and CompuServe still connected people to the internet.

It was in that environment that American Airlines offered its easySABRE service on Prodigy. The service allowed you to book flights on 300 airlines, make reservations at thousands of hotels and even rent cars. It was ahead of its time. (Yes, I used it. Don’t judge.)

In 1996, with the web still in its infancy, Travelocity and Expedia were launched, making the travel sector the first to truly embrace e-commerce and the internet.

Civic and Anheuser-Busch are charting a similar path. And beer isn’t the only sector where large established players are getting into blockchain.

In finance, Nasdaq is actively using blockchain tech to settle certain transactions. In medicine, Quest Diagnostics has launched a pilot program with UnitedHealth, MultiPlan and Humana to create a data-sharing platform. In shipping and logistics, UPS and Maersk are investing heavily in blockchain to develop systems to track and manage global shipping and supply chains. In fact, they’re so vested in blockchain technology that they testified before Congress last week about its importance.

So as you watch blockchain take off this year and beyond, take time to appreciate that it all started with an ice-cold beer.

Good investing,

Vin Narayanan
Senior Managing Editor, Early Investing

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Source: Early Investing

Options

Is This Trade Really Going To Earn 24,900% Returns?

After over a year of basically no volatility in the stock market, we had something of a volatility revelation which began on February 5th. The selloff that day and the subsequent implosion of certain volatility products (like XIV) created a major jump in market volatility.

As you can see from the chart, iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSE: VXX) shot up above $50 on the day of the big selloff. Afterwards, it remained essentially above $40 until just this past week or so. As you can see at the start of the chart, VXX was far lower before the volatility event in early February.

As a reminder, VXX is a very popular ETN and is used to trade short-term volatility based on the VIX indicator – the most common measure of market volatility. VXX is one of the few exchange traded products to maintain a brisk business (i.e. volume) after the volatility blowout.

While many traders like to use VXX to speculate on volatility movement, it is also used to hedge against higher volatility. As an easy-to-access method for getting long short-term VIX futures (that’s what VXX does behind the scenes), it’s one of the simplest ways to protect long stock portfolios.

But what about tail-risk? That’s when something extreme happens, like a major market selloff. February 5th is an example of a “tail-risk day”. Can VXX protect your portfolio in that case?

At least one trader thinks so. This trader is using VXX as tail-risk hedge for the next month. Perhaps he or she thinks the Iran/Israel situation will escalate. Or, it could just be a cheap way to protect against a worst-case scenario.

The trade I’m talking about is an extra-wide VXX call spread. The trader purchased 10,000 June 15th 70 calls while at the same time selling an equal amount of 100 calls. The total cost of the call spread was only $0.12. The spread was so cheap because VXX was only trading for around $36 at the time of the trade (meaning it would need to double just to be in-the-money).

Of course, chances are this trade will expire worthless. And, while the trader spent $120,000 on 10,000 spreads, it’s not a lot to spend from an institutional standpoint. In other words, if this is a tail-risk hedge for a fund or major portfolio, it’s a relatively small price to pay.

As you would also expect, the trade pays off huge if the market does collapse and VXX goes to $100 or above. In that case, the trader would generate 24,900% returns! Granted, even the February 5th correction only pushed VXX from under $30 to about $55. A move above $70 is not likely to happen at any point, much less in the next month.

Regardless, if you’re looking for an ultra-cheap way to protect against a black swan event, this trade is a decent way of doing so. After all, tail-risk hedges are much more about peace of mind than they are about making profits.

Source: Investors Alley 

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