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Imagine you walked into a Las Vegas casino and you brought all the money you had, let’s say $1 million, and the casino gave you $154 million to gamble with. How smart do you think that would be for that casino? Well, right now Goldman Sachs Bank USA has 154 times their assets in total gross derivatives!
A number of other giant financial banks are also leveraging up using credit default swaps and similar derivative contracts:
Credit default swaps were at the heart of the financial crisis in 2008 that brought down AIG. The insurance giant AIG had been selling credit default swaps for years, collecting tiny premiums, confident that the mortgage market wouldn’t collapse, and that they’d never have to pay out a claim.
How The Pandemic Actually Increased Financial Literacy forbes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forbes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Another week in 2021 witnessed another few historic moments for Bitcoin. Last week saw a $1.5 billion investment in BTC by Tesla, and Mastercard’s announcement that it would be accepting Bitcoin on its network. This week, BTC crossed through the $50,000 mark for the first time and held levels above $50K for most of the week.
The move past $50K has brought with it much media attention: Bitcoin, which was already riding high in the headlines because of the Tesla announcement, has stayed in the center of attention although not all of that attention has been positive.
Bitcoin’s Rally Continues, and So Do Its PR Problems