Who loses money when I close my short with a profit?

>>2956509
nobody loses money, you just kept the difference in before borrow cost and return borrow cost.

The person who loaned you the shitcoins gets them back at a lower value

>>2956509
Trading is not a net 0 game. When you opened the short, traders (either institutional market makers, traders or investors) took the buy side.

Those traders could have done anything with the buy side of that trade any time between your open and close. For what it is worth, your short 100 shares of Apple could have been split and traded 6 different ways among the entire market.

When you then closed your short, you bought the same amount of shares back, netting 0 of your total holdings on the security.

That means you bought hypothetically 100 shares of apple back. But those 100 shares of apple could have come from everyone too.

Usually, market makers are the people moving your positions. There are many reasons someone would want shares of a security higher than when it started, and many of those reasons do not mean people objectively lost money.

>>2956509
Is everyone here retarded?
When you short you borrow against the exchange