Here’s how the trade works. It starts with the price discrepancy between the spot price for Bitcoin and the value of derivatives contracts that come due months in the future, what’s known as a basis trade. On March 15, Bitcoin traded for $56,089 while the July future contract on CME Group Inc. was at $60,385.
A hedge fund could buy Bitcoin at that spot price and sell the July futures, meaning the derivatives would gain value if Bitcoin fell. Doing so on March 15 locked in a 7.7% spread between the cash and futures price. Annualizing that over the 137 days between March 15 and July 30 when the futures contract expires equates to a 21% annual return.
The hedge fund, however, needs cash to buy the spot Bitcoin, so would be willing to pay what seems to be exorbitant rate of 12% for the loan as long as it can earn 21%, or a 9% profit, on the trade. The spread between spot and futures has been even higher in recent months.
“The basis trade was paying 42% annually the other week,” Michael Saylor, the chief executive officer of enterprise software maker MicroStrategy Inc. who has bought 91,326 Bitcoin since December worth about $5 billion, said March 17 at the Futures Industry Association conference.
One aspect of this trade is that it’s almost risk free, assuming CME Group doesn’t go bust as a counterparty. That’s because once the spot and futures prices are locked in, they will converge so that the spread between them is the payoff, minus trading fees.
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