CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[marothisu]

Say whatever you want about cryptocurrencies, but this is great news. The underlying tech represents a sort of evolution, and by moving their infrastructure to Chicago and opening an office not only shows the progress of the trading community but also the tech community.

Also, the article says that Kraken is also moving from SF to Chicago. This is a sizable exchange...and is also awesome news. That's 2 cryptocurrency exchanges moving their tech from SF to Chicago and both opening regular offices in Chicago.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Please provide a link to that article

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2018/05/15/ansarada-chicago-headquarters-announcement

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Justin_Chicago

Coinbase to rebuild infrastructure in Chicago

San Francisco-based Coinbase is making a big move into Chicago, bringing the backbone of its system to the city.

Coinbase plans to transfer its current exchange to Chicago and overhaul it using the city's trading tech talent to upgrade the matching engine, says Paul Bauerschmidt, who was recently hired to oversee the company's new Chicago office. The rebranded Coinbase Markets infrastructure will be rolled out over the next year.

Bauerschmidt, who was recruited by Coinbase in October, was formerly head of futures exchange CME Group's swaps execution facility, and more recently, managing director of products and services at Chicago-based Eris Exchange. He will head the product side of the business in Chicago and expects it to expand from six employees today to about 35 over the next year, and 90 to 100 in the city in three years, he said.

Another major U.S. exchange is also migrating to Chicago. San Francisco-based Kraken recently hired Steve Hunt, Jump Trading's former chief technology officer, to plant a stake in the city and pursue recruiting. It was also a big sponsor this month of the annual Chicago Trading Show, which drew nearly 1,200 attendees—its largest crowd ever.

Article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/2...ase-to-rebuild-infrastructure-in-chicago

The Bitcoin bubble was totally irrational exuberance, but cryptos are here to stay just like how tech was here to stay in 2000. The best time to buy will be when the next recession wipes out the weaklings and reveals who will be the Apples, Googles, and Facebooks of the crypto bubble and who is Pets.com. With the infrastructure and talent Chicago has for these trades (remember, we have the lowest latency in the world which is why like 70% of the prop trading industry is located here) it's no surprise some of the serious crypto players are relocating here. Just another excellent demonstration of the irreplaceable geographic and talent advantages of being the great funnel of the center of the North American continent. All railroads lead to Chicago, therefore all fiber leads to Chicago.

[Vlajos]

I'm no expert on crypto currency trading, but this has to mean Chicago will be a major center of this trading industry.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

I'm no expert on crypto currency trading, but this has to mean Chicago will be a major center of this trading industry.

It is becoming that way... With the exchanges in Chicago having a few indices now and funds. New York screwed itself over for this by being the only state that requires a license for an exchange to even accept someone in that state to trade on an exchange. There's a reason why I can't trade on Kraken (an exhange) but all my friends and coworkers who live in New Jersey just a few miles away can. Hopefully Illinois doesn't follow the way of NY for this.

[Vlajos]

^ interesting about NY, never knew that

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

^ interesting about NY, never knew that

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitLicense

The "funny" thing is that the guy behind this law then quit government once it was enacted to form a private company dedicated solely to helping companies acquire the license.

Not suspect at all..

[the urban politician]

^ Sounds like something a Chicago politician would do...

Illinois screwed itself over in the 80s by not permitting branch banking. Now we have no major banks any longer. But at least we have the exchanges

[the urban politician]

More news, this time CBOE:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/2...boe-team-up-on-new-bond-futures-contract

[the urban politician]

And now another one:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/2...ncy-startup-bcause-scouts-chicago-talent

[left of center]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Sounds like something a Chicago politician would do...

Illinois screwed itself over in the 80s by not permitting branch banking. Now we have no major banks any longer. But at least we have the exchanges

Yeah, the state definitely fell asleep at the wheel in the 80s, and by 1990 had to play catch up after the laws were overturned. We were able to cobble a large-ish bank (Bank One, actually ended up becoming the 6th largest bank in the US), which was entirely by luck as well, since it was an Ohio bank buying up Chicago Federal and then moving its HQ to Chicago.

At least we have the exchanges is right! We might not have any major bank HQ's anymore, but the exchanges mean that every single major US and international bank will have a presence in the city. Its not as good as having an HQ, but it sure beats having neither.

Originally Posted by Vlajos

I'm no expert on crypto currency trading, but this has to mean Chicago will be a major center of this trading industry.

The city started heading in that direction with the CME and CBOE starting BTC futures trading in December of last year. The fact that cryptocurrencies are essential a tech-backed financial instrument means that all these firms have to go to where the talent is, which in this case is primarily NYC and Chicago, and as marothisu mentioned, New York made it much more difficult to set up shop there with their licensing law, much to Chicago's benefit.

[the urban politician]

Some news sites are reporting that shareholders have approved the CME/NEX merger

[Vlajos]

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/2...ident-trump-affect-on-amazon-hq2-process

If the pros who read the tea leaves are getting it right, Chicago has a real shot to make the three- to five-city shortlist when Amazon pares the finalists for its prized HQ2 and a projected 50,000 jobs. The latest indication came in a story in the Toronto Star that, based on a consultant's report it obtained, the final three ought to be Chicago, Los Angeles and the Washington, D.C., area.

[Baronvonellis]

If you study bitcoins, I don't know why anyone is investing in cryptos. The technology behind it is all open source. Anyone at anytime can make 2 million Cubs-coins or Sox-coins. They are all worthless or less than a penny. There is no scarcity to them at all, and no intrinsic value. Warren Buffet says the same. The technology behind it may have value to banks, but as an investment it's worth less than a penny, it's just "printing" monopoly money.

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

The Bitcoin bubble was totally irrational exuberance, but cryptos are here to stay just like how tech was here to stay in 2000. The best time to buy will be when the next recession wipes out the weaklings and reveals who will be the Apples, Googles, and Facebooks of the crypto bubble and who is Pets.com. With the infrastructure and talent Chicago has for these trades (remember, we have the lowest latency in the world which is why like 70% of the prop trading industry is located here) it's no surprise some of the serious crypto players are relocating here. Just another excellent demonstration of the irreplaceable geographic and talent advantages of being the great funnel of the center of the North American continent. All railroads lead to Chicago, therefore all fiber leads to Chicago.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/2...ident-trump-affect-on-amazon-hq2-process

If the pros who read the tea leaves are getting it right, Chicago has a real shot to make the three- to five-city shortlist when Amazon pares the finalists for its prized HQ2 and a projected 50,000 jobs. The latest indication came in a story in the Toronto Star that, based on a consultant's report it obtained, the final three ought to be Chicago, Los Angeles and the Washington, D.C., area.

I'd be surprised to see LA land it just because of its location. I think we can edge out DC. Wouldn't be disappointed to come in third to these two, but I think we've got a VERY good chance here.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

If you study bitcoins, I don't know why anyone is investing in cryptos. The technology behind it is all open source. Anyone at anytime can make 2 million Cubs-coins or Sox-coins. They are all worthless or less than a penny. There is no scarcity to them at all, and no intrinsic value. Warren Buffet says the same. The technology behind it may have value to banks, but as an investment it's worth less than a penny, it's just "printing" monopoly money.

I don't know how to tell you this, but most pro crypto people would agree too. Most coins are pointless. I have a now former coworker who retired recently at age 29 because he made millions off bitcoin. He was very pro crypto, but guess what? Everytime someone asked about any random coin, he would tell them they are dumb for trying to buy into BS and should only be buying into 1 or 2 coins. And I totally agree...it's dumb, but that doesn't mean it's all B.S.. Back during the .com bubble, there were bunches of bs sites, but that didn't justify putting a blanket statement on all of them.

There have been a lot of people recently buying into all sorts of coins and most of those people don't actually understand anything about this stuff. Don't get convinced by those people. Anybody who invests in a literal clone of bitcoin doesn't understand. But to put a blanket statement on it is decently naive. Most people I find end up regurgitating information from people about this stuff, and you can tell who does that.




On another note, I was reading the Facebook hiring article again and I believe they're going to make Chicago its head of cryptocurrency. They announced not long ago they wanted to make a cryptocurrency (https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/11/17344...ncy-token-blockchain-report-david-marcus) and what's in that article, if true, about hiring people from the financial ecosystem of Chicago makes sense for this. Chicago may very well be establishing itself as one of the, or the main development hub for this stuff in the US. We'll have to see though.

[Baronvonellis]

Well yea I agree with you people did and still can make lots of money in bitcoins. There's a sucker born every minute. I'm mad I didn't invest in them about 4 years ago. They seemed over valued when bitcoin was $300. It had a big bubble in 2013, but then kept falling and falling, it seemed like some techy/nerdy fringe thing. And I could of bought some when they were a dollar, and I'd have millions today. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I didn't know they would turn into mass hysteria.

So, what's the next thing that's going to be huge that everyone will want?

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Well yea I agree with you people did and still can make lots of money in bitcoins. There's a sucker born every minute. I'm mad I didn't invest in them about 4 years ago. They seemed over valued when bitcoin was $300. It had a big bubble in 2013, but then kept falling and falling, it seemed like some techy/nerdy fringe thing. And I could of bought some when they were a dollar, and I'd have millions today. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I didn't know they would turn into mass hysteria.

So, what's the next thing that's going to be huge that everyone will want?

If the city gets HQ2, multifamily housing?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Well yea I agree with you people did and still can make lots of money in bitcoins. There's a sucker born every minute. I'm mad I didn't invest in them about 4 years ago. They seemed over valued when bitcoin was $300. It had a big bubble in 2013, but then kept falling and falling, it seemed like some techy/nerdy fringe thing. And I could of bought some when they were a dollar, and I'd have millions today. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I didn't know they would turn into mass hysteria.

So, what's the next thing that's going to be huge that everyone will want?

I'm not really sure you fully understand the potential power of the implementation though or what's so interesting about the development. What happened over a few months at the end of 2017 was pretty dumb but it was indicative of a bunch of people investing in something they have no idea about. As someone who is in the financial industry as a tech person too, I'm more interested in other things about it. It had useful applications, but the majority of coins are pointless. Those who understand what a cryptocurrency actually is understand that. It's simple business. Unfortunately most people don't understand...even those who have earned millions.

Read about financial tech systems, then learn about the tech of something like bitcoin and I think you'll begin too see why this could be important from that perspective, or an important lesson for something else in the future.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

If the city gets HQ2, multifamily housing?

Everybody already wants this, trust me.

The talk about the Case-Schiller Index and metro Chicago's sluggish property values which lazy cherry pickers like to quote tells nothing about what's been happening over the past 8 years with multifamily.

Prices have been up and up, particularly over the past 3 years. Good deals are harder to find. I picked up a huge 3 flat in Ukrainian Village in 2011 for $235k. That would be unthinkable now. If we get HQ2 it will be pure insanity