Tour: Levana

Hey, ho, all! It's a lovely 55°F / 13°C here in September-y VIRGINIA! 😤

A catch-all buy-order hit on @TeamKujira FIN for $OSMO on a down-spike!

I COULD take 10% profit on @osmosiszone (not @Shade_Protocol, as the swap is unfavorable), ... 

Or, I COULD trade it for $ATOM at a ratio of 16 $OSMO per $ATOM, at these prices that's [computes]: $5.54-per-ATOM.

A fine price, but look at the history.

I would buy 1.6 $ATOM, ...

... then wait 3 centuries to buy the remaining 8.5 $ATOM.

Ugh. 

I mean, ... it is a play? 

Or, I COULD lease an asset, say $wBTC, on @NolusProtocol, with $OSMO.

But that assumes:

• $OSMO retains its value or goes up in price or
• $wBTC goes down in value.

I'm not willing to take either bet at present, ... because I'm not stupid.

Narrator: You're not?

me: 😤

... and I could be totally wrong on this "Don't lease $BTC with $OSMO"-call. It could be that I want $OSMO to go down and $BTC to go up on a lease-play, idk.

I'm just too new to this leasing-thing. I'm not (yet) willing to explore plays other than $USDC collateral.

At any rate, I have $55-worth of $OSMO from a 50 $USK catch-all, which is even better, as axlUSDC/USK is now > 1. YUS!

So, let's short $OSMO on @Levana_protocol.

A tour.

I bridge my claimed $OSMO to @osmosiszone (where @Levana_protocol) then set the short at 3x.

Straight-away, the transaction fails to commit.

@Levana_protocol is an interesting take on perpetuals. You long- or short- positions using the same token as collateral! 😱 Now, this isn't new for perpetuals, but it's new for me.

But there's another interesting twist here.

The twist is this: most perpetual exchanges ('PEX'???) have insurance to cover their positions. @Levana_protocol doesn't need it. Why?

You're required to select a 'take profit' value, that comes set in ranges that @Levana_protocol can cover with EXISTING FUNDING!

So, after I 'jiggle' the 'Take Profit'-slider, I get a green value there and the transaction completes.

I don't like that. @Levana_protocol should adjust that automatically to a safe-zone, particularly for first-timers, comme moiself. Failing a transaction is bad Juju. #BadJuju 

Here's another thing I don't like. On the dashboard, I can't see the vitals my positions at a glance, they're hidden by a slider, or I have to click-thru.

"NBD," sez you.

Sez I: Oh? When the market skies or tanks, you don't have time to click-thru every one of your positions.

Here's the third thing I don't like:

The SECOND I placed my $OSMO 3x short, the price feed went absolutely haywire, slamming up the price to 46¢-per THREE TIMES IN A ROW!

This is WAY above liquidation price. What? I set a short, and I can be insta-liquidated by the price feed?

Now, if I believed $OSMO retains value well, I would set up a δneutral position by placing $OSMO into the stability pool on the 'Earn'-page, funding the protocol as well.

BTW, confusingly: "OSMO / USD" IS NOT an LP pair! It's a single-stake $OSMO-only pool of liquidity.

However, I believe the opposite. I have seen $OSMO lose a tremendous amount of value over the past two years, and all I hear is talk-talk, and all I see is 📉.

For now, anyway.

I'm shorting $OSMO like a fomo mofo. If price spikes, I lose $50. If it stays flat, I make fees.

But what happens as the price of $OSMO (continues to fall)?

Here's what @Levana_protocol does: as the price falls, THEY ADJUST THE COLLATERAL UP TO COMPENSATE! 😱

On a 3x-short, I profit 3¢-per each 1¢ $OSMO's price falls.

My SPREADSHEETSZORXEN tells me 31¢-per is a 10% gain.

So, do I cash-out at 31¢-per $OSMO?

That's one option, ...

geddit? 'option'? on a perpetual? GEDDIT?

Narrator: we get it, okay? 🙄

Another, ... [dare I say?] ... option, is to keep the short, continue to collect fees, and ride that gravy train to, in this case, 17¢-per.

So, this is my introduction to @Levana_protocol to myself. After I get the feel of this short, I'll explore how to set up an, e.g.: $BTC or $ETH δneutral position on this protocol.

k, fam, 143 means 'I love you!'

Kujira: closing stOSMO short

Have y'all seen the price PLUMMET on $stOSMO on @TeamKujira FIN stOSMO/USK board? Somebody really wanted to sell off their $stOSMO.

Good news for me, because I just bought $stOSMO at 37.5¢.

Why good news? Because I shorted $stOSMO at 49¢-per.

I'll now close that short.

"BUT, el geophf!" you cry in anguish! "THERE IS NO SHORT-SELLING ON @TeamKujira YET!"

Sorry, fren, but there is indeed short-selling, but you have to know how to do it yourself.

That's why I provide this article.

I close the $stOSMO short by repaying the borrow on @TeamKujira Ghost.

2023-05-29: sold (short) 300 $stOSMO for 147 $USK

2023-08-06: bought (close) 301.873 $stOSMO for 109.02 $USK

69 days (eheh! 😅) ROI: 25.84%, 136.67% APR

Now THAT's how you do a short! 

But that's not the end of this story, as I have left-over $stOSMO to sell or to deploy. I choose to deploy the $stOSMO as:

1. $stATOM catch-all on stATOM/stOSMO board
2. $KUJI catch-all on KUJI/stOSMO board (shown)

Still not done with the goodness, folks, for:

1. closing the $stOSMO on @TeamKujira Ghost freed up 500 $axlUSDC

2. And I had hedge of 150 $xaxlUSDC on ORCA's $stOSMO liquidation market.

This means closing this short swung me ANOTHER 650 $axlUSDC!

Wow! 🎉🎉🎉

Closing ETH leveraged short on Kujira

I recently (2023-06-10) took out a leveraged short against 0.05 $wETH on @TeamKujira blockchain.

HOWTO: leverage short on @TeamKujira, even though they don't provide that for you on FIN, ... yet.

• 2023-06-10 entry: 0.05 $wETH 1.6xSHORT, $1,803.87-per

You see that my SPREADSHEETSZORXEN! sez to close the short at $1,639-per (above).

You also see that @osmosiszone quotes $wETH at $1,632-per.

Yeup. Time to close this short.

But here's the thing ...

"What is 'the thing'?" you ask.

Well, besides being John Carpenter's Magnum Opus, the thing is this:

Some ... 'very generous soul' is willing to buy $wETH at 1,557.89-$USK-per on wETH/USK FIN board.

Translating to $axlUSDC, that $1653-per, or: $20-more-per than @osmosiszone 😎

Hey, if YOU want to buy $wETH at $20 above market price, then I will HAPPILY SELL you ALLES teh $wETH that you want to buy!

No. problem. what. so. ever.

Upshot: ALWAYS! always-always, as an arbiteur, look for these inefficiencies in the marketplaceSSSz, even across blockchains.

SO!

• I withdraw funds necessary to buy $wETH both to close the short AND to sell on the wETH/USK board.

• I bridge that liquidity to @osmosiszone via Satellite

• then swap $axlUSDC for $wETH

• then bridge the $wETH back using IBC transfers.

I close my $wETH short by returning the borrowed $wETH to @TeamKujira Ghost

• 2023-06-15 exit: 0.05 $wETH, $1,632-per

ROI: 10.53%, annualized to 630% APR 🎉🎉🎉

Holy... wow. 😱

Consequently, this frees up the 278 $USK that I supplied as collateral.

This short: filled with WIN!

The $wETH short-win-goodness gets even better, as I have 0.1 $wETH I bought at $1,632-per on @osmosiszone that I sell on @TeamKujira wETH/USK FIN at 1,557.89-$USK-per, or $1,653-per.

That order fills instantaneously.

• 2023-06-15: SELL 0.1 $wETH, 1,557.89-per-$USK

ROI: 1.29%, ∞% APR

Takeaways

What are the takeaways?

• borrowing is good or bad?

Depends.

Borrowing an asset falling in price is good, so if you know your token and you see it's going down, you can borrow then sell it now to make profit in the short sale when you buy it back at a lower price.

Another takeaway:

• inspiration

If you see a token-price-trend, know this: not everyone does.

LEVERAGE your insight: look for inefficiencies in the marketplace, buying tokens underpriced and selling tokens overpriced.

That's what we arbiteurs do: bring balance to the galaxy.

 

Top 13 FIN order books by volume, 2023-06-09

Top 13 FIN order books by volume, 2023-06-09

 

1. KUJI/axlUSDC,$48.71K
2. axlUSDC/USK,$30.75K
3. KUJI/USK,$25.65K
4. ATOM/axlUSDC,$16.41K
5. ATOM/USK,$15.73K
6. KUJI/ATOM,$4.38K
7. STRD/USK,$3.52K
8. STARS/USK,$3.38K
9. LUNA/USK,$1.73K
10. ampWHALE/WHALE,$1.53K
11. wETH/axlUSDC,$1.39K
12. WHALE/USK,$1.05K
13. MNTA/USK,$1.02K

Report generated by ./top_order_books

Missed Opportunity

Do you know that some traders use volume as an indicator to buy or sell?

There was an opportunity that I missed:

SHORTING $KUJI.

Hear me out.

The report, above, shows KUJI/axlUSDC is high-volume. Look at the KUJI/axlUSDC chart on @TeamKujira FIN.

What I could have done was borrow $KUJI at $1+-per, borrow all the $KUJI I could, sell that $KUJI, then, now, buy back the $KUJI and close the borrow, effectively shorting $KUJI at 17% ROI, annualized to an er-mi-josh APR of nearly 1,000%!

😱🤯

Here's the problem with that pat, little summation (PT): it's great in hindsight (a priori, my fav analysis), but it doesn't tell you what to do now nor in the future?

Will $KUJI go up or down?

Who knows? I don't, and nor does any other blowhard with their predictive analytics.

Analyses, a priori (back-testing, which I love) or a posteriori (forward-looking, which I hate), is useless and WORSE than useless if you use it to beat yourself up.

"Oh, I shudda..." or "If only I had ..."

The past is the past. You're not going to change it with hand-wringing.

HERE's what I find analyses to be good for:

• opening my eyes to opportunities.

I say not shorting $KUJI was a missed opportunity, but that's the past.

Going forward, when I see high volume on the sell-side, no matter the token or sacred cow, I can say: "Hm. Short?"

Then act.

If you're wondering how you can short an asset, when shorting assets aren't provided on FIN, ...

... yet...

I've written two articles on my blog that talk to opening (leveraged) shorts and then when and how to close a short and the realized gains (... 'short gains'?) therefrom.

• Leveraged shorts on @TeamKujira Ghost and FIN
• Closing a short, leveraged
• Closing a short, not leveraged
• Other HOWTOs, articles, pensées, and #cryptocurrency resources are on my Crypto-page.

Postlude, or: the 'Happy Ending.'

The 'missed $KUJI short opportunity'?

This story isn't over, because why?

Because I did borrow 100 $KUJI at 87¢-per 

(quote thanks to @coingecko)

It's now 83¢-per.

So, I buy 100 $KUJI at limit price and close the borrow.

• ROI: 3.7%, annualized to 149% APR

SWEET! 🎉

HOWTO short assets using Kujira Ghost borrow

HOW I profited from shorting tokens using @TeamKujira Ghost borrow, ...

(and how you can, too).

An epigram by the el geophf.

This is a really simple, straightforward short that doesn't use leverage.

Some time ago I borrowed $stOSMO. I anticipated its price would fall, but, this time, instead of losing money, I was going to make money, by short-selling that borrowed $stOSMO.

So, I sold it at 62.1¢-per

You see in my SPREADSHEETSZORXEN! (PT) that I also computed the price for $stOSMO to fall to to make 10% profit: 56.4¢

Guess what?

$stOSMO swap-value is 56.2¢ on @osmosiszone now.

Now, I could just buy the $stOSMO I need to clear the borrow on Ghost, but I also did a bit of digging on FIN and discovered that someone was buying 10 $stOSMO at 59.1¢-$USK-per!

So, I computed how much $axlUSDC I would need to close the borrow AND sell that overpriced $stOSMO.

So, I withdraw the $axlUSDC from Ghost, bridge that to @osmosiszone via the Satellite Bridge, swap to $stOSMO on @osmosiszone, then I bridge that $stOSMO to @stride_zone. 

I can bridge the $stOSMO back from @stride_zone, which I do, then I close the borrow position on Ghost (getting my 80 $axlUSDC collateral back), and sell the remaining $stOSMO on FIN at a profit.

So, how much did I make?

• 2023-05-29 entry: SOLD 38 $stOSMO at $0.621-per
• 2023-06-07 exit: BUY 38 $stOSMO at $0.562-per

ROI: 10.5%, annualized to 383% APR

AND I instantly arb'd 10 $stOSMO on @osmosiszone at 56.2¢-per to 58.6¢-per on FIN

ROI: 4.34%, instantly.

SWEET! 🎉🎉