Perhaps I misunderstand, but this does not make sense to me.

"If you knew that Hive price was going to spike you could convert Hive into HBD and trade that HBD back into Hive for a profit."

If Hive spikes, as it recently has, I lose money by buying HBD with inexpensive Hive and buying more expensive Hive with HBD that does not spike. When Hive was $.20 it was 5 Hive per HBD. When Hive is at $.40 it is 2.5 Hive per HBD, a loss of 50%. Had I sold my HBD for Hive at $.20 and today sold my Hive for HBD, I would double my money, a win in any portfolio.

Similarly, the following makes no sense to me.

"...sell some Hive into USDT to go long."

The reverse is what I understand would be a bet on Hive rising in price. Selling some USDT to buy Hive at the low price, and then later selling the higher priced Hive for USDT that had not increased in price would result in me increasing my USDT holdings.

"...this is the bottom and I'm looking to move that 1M into other assets."

Since HBD is a stablecoin, I can only assume you mean Hive is at the bottom. Then buying Hive to hold it would be buying low, and rather than trading out of Hive, HODLing it until it rises as expected would then enable me to trade back in for more HBD than I spent to get the Hive.

"Why are longs being paid an arm and a leg to make this market?"

People that hold Hive and expect the price to go down would expect to take the Long money. Seems pretty obvious to me...

Every trade you discuss here is backwards to me. Please correct my misunderstanding that buying low and selling high is how to profit, if you can. I would love to be able to buy high and sell low to profit.

Thanks!