[niceairport]

Maybe they have issues with people taking on a margin that they cannot afford? Cryptocurrencies being as volatile as they are shorting them on a margin can result in high losses that HSBC prefers not to be involved with? Just a guess.

[ptero]

Not impossible, but IMO highly unlikely: stocks, especially smaller ones can be way more volatile than any currency with over 1T market value. And you can still buy those on margin.

[perl4ever]

>you can still buy those on margin

That is absolutely not the case in a categorical sense.

Brokers can and do apply different margin requirements on a stock by stock or customer by customer basis. There's nothing out of the ordinary about a security not being marginable or having increased requirements due to risk assessment.

For example, here is a list of stocks at one broker with particular margin requirements, and it says it "changes frequently":

https://invest.ameritrade.com/cgi-bin/apps/u/MarginReq

Given that there are hundreds starting with "A", I'd assume the entire list is in the thousands, of securities that have individual margin requirements.

I think in fact the ticker GBTC which is a trust that owns Bitcoin isn't marginable.

[codetrotter]

Note, the page you linked to requires login.

[perl4ever]

Well, here is a public page (with just GME) that proves the point that they can and do apply requirements to individual stocks, anyway:

https://www.tdameritrade.com/td-ameritrade-trading-restricti...

Here's another with GME and AMC:

https://www.schwab.com/margin-updates

But there are also lots of others you never heard of, that aren't mentioned.

[klodolph]

Doesn't the market volume have a multiplicative effect, though? In other words, it's not just volatility, it's volatility x volume. Or something like that.

[niceairport]

That's true. Maybe something to do with regulations then? HSBC is already being accused of being involved with money laundering quite a lot. Also, what other coins except BTC have market cap >1T?

[ptero]

I suspect regulation (or fear of impending one) is the likely culprit; but again, not sure. Re: size -- I was including regular fiat currencies, not just digitals.

[gruez]

I'm pretty sure bitcoin has less volatility than some of the meme stocks (eg. GME or AMC).

[robjan]

Meme stocks cannot be traded on margin by any sensible broker

[Alkim]

Are you saying that trading on market sentiment is an invalid trading strategy?

[robjan]

I'm saying that a broker will offer little or no margin on a meme stock