I'm trying to wrap my head around it, trying to figure out how to go long / short
maybe you could expand the How it Works section and really dumb it down ( like what is strike price? )
give me an example of a bullish & bearish option
@adamstgBit: that's a good idea. We'll look at adding a better overview of trading options.
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I had a look thru several "Trade" screens but couldn't find any options to trade.
Maybe, it would be useful to have a "ShowAllOpen" button that doesn't show just one strike date/contract size/type but lists any and all options that are actually out there. This may help with people finding something they can trade.
I was thinking about loading funds to create some options but past Bitcoin trading sites have had such a poor track record of keeping customer funds safe that I really feel it would be yet another risky venture.
@BkkCoins: Adding a "Show All Open" button for options is a great idea, and we'll add it, thanks!
Regarding keeping customer funds safe we're aware of the poor track record due to hacking. For this reason we don't store any funds on the site at all. Even if our site is completely compromised no funds could be moved. Also, every withdrawal is approved manually, and we require email confirmation beforehand.
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and price at the end of the week is 11$
do i owe the buyer of the option 1$ or 0.1BTC ?
@adamstgBit: you would owe $1.00 in that situation, the difference between the contract strike price and actual price at maturity. If you owned the bitcoin as the option writer you could sell it on Mt.Gox at the final price to cover how much you owed. That's known as "writing a covered call". @BkkCoins is correct that we exercise options as contracts for difference which has the advantage that traders don't have to own the underlying asset. This is how we'e able to allow options trading currently on gold, silver, oil, and stock prices as well as bitcoins.
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I am an experienced options trader in the real world and I am interested in this. However, I will have a lot of trust issues with options based on bitcoin and with all the recent scams of other exchanges, can you please reveal the identity of all the founders when you open? If you do that, I'd consider investing more, otherwise, it'll just be limited to probably 10 BTC for fun. Why trade options here when you can earn more in real life?
Regards,
@JeanSergeBaptise: regarding our anonymity please see here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.935881
We've been running almost 2 months now with no issues, and will continue working to build trust. Of course, please feel free to only use amounts you are comfortable with.
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@Andrew Vorobyov: we might do that, but for now we're still focused on getting a good trading experience set up.
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Example: Offer the Aug 31 $8 call option on 1 BTC for free. Have writers put up 1 BTC as collateral and collect a small premium.
Is there an API for market makers?
@TTBit: I think you're right about having too many choices for now. We wanted to build out a robust trading platform, but it may be better to scale things back to be very simple, with limited featured options like you suggest, to start off. Thanks!
We don't have any plans at this time to add an API for market makers.