[skinnymuch]

Would some cryptocurrency stuff count? We have no idea how much a handful of whales control Bitcoin or Eth. The tether thing seems really shaky too with how much they actually have in reserves. Same with a number of exchanges or major market players.

Cryptocurrency is also a bit wonky because of always including forever lost access to a solid percentage of the currency. Bitcoin is the most notable.

[JanisL]

Tether is an enormous fraud and the financial reporting of the reserves has just never been up to generally accepted standards.

The thing with crypto is that much like some of these other commodity markets there's less real trading volume than many people think (there's been a lot of wash trading going on: https://cryptobriefing.com/binance-wash-trading-icebergs-tip...). Where crypto is very different from the futures markets is that you can just buy the stuff directly because the costs of holding it are much lower. Say I want to invest in oil, it's a massive pain in the ass to build warehousing to start taking delivery, whereas something like crypto is much easier for a company or individual to hold. From this point of view there's very real non-regulatory reasons why trading futures for oil makes sense whereas this is not so for cryptocurrencies.

[skinnymuch]

Ah yes this makes sense

[Ekaros]

Bitcoin is best example. Somehow currency we aren't sure how much is reachable anymore should come some sort of gold standard... Like at any moment significant fraction of it could be dumped on market. Probably won't, but it is not entirely certain...

[JanisL]

Bitcoin is a lot less liquid than many people think, a lot of wash trading has occurred recently that has obscured this.

[skinnymuch]

I wish there was better or more reporting and stuff on this. I have assumed this is the case. But :/