Although bidding bots have been publicly blamed for the scarcity of SBDs, it's very possible that SBDs are being bought up by "insiders" who know what's about to happen and want a hedge against the upcoming collapse. What hedge is better than being able to print STEEM using the SBD conversion feature at a guaranteed price of $1... even if the price of STEEM collapses to pennies?
I can't think of one.
I can. BitUSD. Or HERO.
If one could buy SBD for close to $1, then it would be a useful strategy for "insiders", but not when paying a 50% as it is at the moment.
BitUSD and, to an extent, HERO (which is trading at a 5-10% premium at the moment to BitUSD) would be far better stable crypto stores of values to hedge against a crash. If one wanted to buy back into STEEM after a collapse, it can be bought on Bitshares DEX, or converted to BTS to transfer to another exchange to buy STEEM on.
The only problem I can see with BitUSD is that there is quite a bit less liquidity on the DEX (from what I can tell) compared to the most of the public exchanges that allow the trading of STEEM, otherwise I agree with you, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was some hedging going on with BitUSD as well.
I have not heard of HERO at all - I just very briefly looked - it looks like it is an asset on the BTS blockchain as well? I'm seeing pretty low transaction volumes and limited activity so I don't know if there would be enough collateral in place to help hedge against a market crash like the one I'm expecting, but I'd definitely like to hear your thoughts on it if there's something I'm missing.
Thanks a lot for the comment and upvote! Much appreciated!
Thanks a lot for your analysis!
Send the article Zerohedge. Given the implications it deserves a big audience.