Altcoin portfolio insurance: what puts and collars actually protect
Compare a protective put and a collar with explicit hypothetical payoffs, premium costs, expiry limits, and the risks a derivative cannot cover.
A Hedge Lab collection
Hedging fundamentals
Understand the hedge before choosing the instrument.
Begin with the exposure, then work toward the contract. These guides explain what an altcoin hedge is intended to do, how a notional amount is estimated, and how options change a payoff. Each separates the purpose of the position from the conditions needed to maintain it.
A useful reading sequence starts with the beginner framework, continues through beta and basis risk, and finishes with puts and collars. The sequence moves from an objective to a measurement problem and then to a particular structure. It does not assume that a derivative is preferable to reducing the original holding.
Pay particular attention to the distinction between price exposure and access to resources. A hedge may offset one in a model while making the other more demanding in practice. The examples are hypothetical, their assumptions are explicit, and none is a suggested trade size. Use this collection to identify better questions about costs, matching, expiry, and operational limits.
3 guides in this collection
How to size an altcoin hedge: beta, notional, and basis risk
Work through a hypothetical hedge-ratio calculation, then examine contract rounding, unstable relationships, and the collateral the formula leaves out.
Altcoin hedging for beginners: start with the risk, not the trade
A practical starting point for identifying exposure, comparing ways to reduce it, and writing a hedge plan that includes its own failure conditions.
Start with the risk.
The strategy comes next.
Build your understanding, one useful question at a time.