Bitcoin is losing admirers.
Investors that are using London-based contracts-for-difference firm IG Group Holdings Plc have increasingly taken bets on drop in the cryptocurrency. That’s a change from a year ago when a far bigger majority wanted to be long, in accordance with Adam Blemings, head of futures and foreign exchange.
Reducing Bitcoin
More spread betters are ready to short bitcoin on IG’s contract-for-difference platform
Last January, over 90% of the company’s clients were betting on price growth. Now as many as 25% of them are betting on declines, Blemings claimed in an interview in London on Feb. 5.
“This time last year, everyone wanted to be long Bitcoin,” Blemings stated. “That’s not what we’re seeing now.”
Cryptocurrency prices stabilized this week after the largest sale in 3 years among closer regulator research. Bitcoin, peak to trough, falled as much as 70% since December. IG Group Chief Executive Officer Peter Hetherington said in January that the company was one of the most important users of Bitcoin futures on the CME Group Inc.’s exchange. IG Group, which takes the opposite side of many of its customers bet, hedges all of its exposure to cryptocurrencies.
CFDs (contracts for difference), are derivatives that allow investors to speculate on the price of securities and other tools, such as cryptocurrencies and commodities.
Merchants on the platform are most bullish on Ripple XRP, with longs outnumbering shorts 18 to 1, and 12 to 1 for Ethereum. For comparison, Apple Inc. longs outnumber shorts 10 to 1, while gold and oil have ratios under 2 to 1. Trading volume hasn’t reduced since prices of digital currencies started falling in December, Blemings stated.
“The little coins are still seeing more clients than sellers,” Blemings claimed, adding that the company also offers trading in Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin
Gold. He said there are no instant plans to add to the range of digital-currency goods the company offers.
