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Topic: Bitoption.org -- ESCROWED LIVE Bitcoin Options Trading - page 14. (Read 36582 times)

newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Any minute now, indeed. Everything looks pretty good, I forgot to implement a withdrawBTC function, so that needs to go in, and I'm writing it right now.

I'm successfully writing, bidding, clearing and exercising contracts right now, plus exchanging on Gox.

Then, one final API check, and we'll be up, BUT you are going to have to write a client, or hand-post to the URLS (not hard to do).

Re: Margin / Balance, etc: I have gone to pretty significant lengths to make sure that the market and each account always stays 'above' water. Lots of assert x > 0 in the code. : ).

At any time, you can call getAvailableBTC(token), or getAvailableUSD(token) and see what your total free, uncommitted balance is. We'll ding you if you try and go over.

The market was also written with every transaction hitting a balance sheet realtime, and I get a notice if the balance sheet doesn't balance.

Put it this way -- I worry about the same thing you all do.

As far as loaning out people's money on the options market, I don't have any plans to do this, and understand completely why this would make people nervous. Right now, it's all hard assets.

legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
In less than eight hours, it will be up. Personal commitment to you and me. Smiley It's just down to extremely minor tweaks.

Re: Option type: American.

Re: Covered; right now, you must be able to cover with the underlying. v2(3?) you will be able to buy to cover. Later, it's possible we'll allow more speculative buy/sell, and just close you out when you get close to your limit.

As we all know, BTC make the lending / margining situation much more difficult than in most western countries, so I don't really expect we'll do much margining. It's possible I would eventually pre-auth credit cards against losses, but right now, I just want this thing out the door.


Nice. Any minute now...

Are you saying requirements won't net out? That seems pretty harmful if so. It seems like that just means we need to leave more with you than necessary, am I misunderstanding?

If I buy a put and sell a call do I need the full size of the call or my max loss?

Any margining should be from a straight loan where the lender takes risk of non payment. I don't think people will care if you are the lender, but not with our money. Perhaps eventually you could come up with a conservative rule set and give traders with extra dough the choice of using their money to lend at interest.

Do you have plans to get less dependent on MtGox? 
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1031
Rational Exuberance
In less than eight hours, it will be up. Personal commitment to you and me. Smiley It's just down to extremely minor tweaks.

Re: Option type: American.

Re: Covered; right now, you must be able to cover with the underlying. v2(3?) you will be able to buy to cover. Later, it's possible we'll allow more speculative buy/sell, and just close you out when you get close to your limit.

As we all know, BTC make the lending / margining situation much more difficult than in most western countries, so I don't really expect we'll do much margining. It's possible I would eventually pre-auth credit cards against losses, but right now, I just want this thing out the door.


Dang. I am so excited to see this running. How are you going to insure yourself against loss of coins? Are you posting bond with someone?
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
In less than eight hours, it will be up. Personal commitment to you and me. Smiley It's just down to extremely minor tweaks.

Re: Option type: American.

Re: Covered; right now, you must be able to cover with the underlying. v2(3?) you will be able to buy to cover. Later, it's possible we'll allow more speculative buy/sell, and just close you out when you get close to your limit.

As we all know, BTC make the lending / margining situation much more difficult than in most western countries, so I don't really expect we'll do much margining. It's possible I would eventually pre-auth credit cards against losses, but right now, I just want this thing out the door.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
Alright, you are just a tease.
newbie
Activity: 38
Merit: 0
I think options are something that BTC could use and should have.  From a quick look at your post I assume these are covered options.  What I am really hoping to see is P2P escrow in place to cover the options so that most of the  3rd party risk could be removed.  As we saw with the credit union we will see more and more of these 3rd party groups do things like this.   Not that I don't trust you mind you.  I still think it's a fantastic idea.  I hope to see a web site interface for it soon.  And if you need a domain I'll provide you a branch of my domain to get you started if needed or just use a no-ip.com address. 

    If you don't know what P2P escrow is or if it's even possible I can tell you that it IS possible with some minor changes to the bitcoin client to add p2p escrow.  I have been talking to other developers and working on making it a reality in the near future in our Freecoin client a branch off the bitcoin client.   We could use more development support and user interest to make it a reality even sooner.   The power is all in your voices.  If you want it, make it heard you want it here in the forums and on the IRC chat channels.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
I think a 10 BTC contract would be more useful, as this could be a week's mining for someone slower.

Just doing 1-1 seems a bit weird to me for an options trade.

Might as well anticipate the increase though. Eventually 1BTC will be a good week for anyone. It'll be confusing to switch what a contract means.

Yeah, I guess you'll just get more options contracts. I'm really interested to see how many people actually use them!

Also, what style options are these? American / European / Japanese / something else?

I expect to lose some money foolishly market making in every contract  Grin
hero member
Activity: 548
Merit: 502
So much code.
I think a 10 BTC contract would be more useful, as this could be a week's mining for someone slower.

Just doing 1-1 seems a bit weird to me for an options trade.

Might as well anticipate the increase though. Eventually 1BTC will be a good week for anyone. It'll be confusing to switch what a contract means.

Yeah, I guess you'll just get more options contracts. I'm really interested to see how many people actually use them!

Also, what style options are these? American / European / Japanese / something else?
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
I think a 10 BTC contract would be more useful, as this could be a week's mining for someone slower.

Just doing 1-1 seems a bit weird to me for an options trade.

Might as well anticipate the increase though. Eventually 1BTC will be a good week for anyone. It'll be confusing to switch what a contract means.
hero member
Activity: 548
Merit: 502
So much code.
I think a 10 BTC contract would be more useful, as this could be a week's mining for someone slower.

Just doing 1-1 seems a bit weird to me for an options trade.
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1031
Rational Exuberance
We REALLY need something like this. In the meantime, while this is in development people can try my "futures" experiment: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=10008.0

I think it should be a good gauge about how much demand there is for bitcoin derivatives.
newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
If you had enough bitcoins/ cash you could easily take the exact opposite of everyones option and just make a comission fee on every single transaction, thats pretty tight.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Server is up, serving requests
Reverse proxy server (SSL) is working
I'm porting from sqlite to mysql for launch; multi-threaded proxy connections to one sqlite file probably won't work.

Domain name still in works, I will probably launch at an IP address with a domain name to follow shortly thereafter.

It's just like me, I have v2 and v3 features written out, MUST LAUNCH FIRST!! Smiley

At this point, I'm thinking probably in 12 to 18 hours. My internet access is really bad this week, so it's hard to remotely develop, which is the point I'm at now.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Update:

I have everything working as far as I can tell, internal libraries and web api.

What's left is some niggly stuff:

. Getting a domain
. SSL certificates
. gentle (hopefully!) beta
. urgent contact channel if there are troubles.

More updates here as they come.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
Quick updates, and a question:

1) I'm still trying to squash a Mt. Gox exchange bug (critical for launch), after that, I think I will ease us into open beta. Hopefully today; more updates in this thread.

2) I have slotted 1 contract = 1 BTC. Most options markets are 1 contract = 100 of the underlying. Does anyone have a strong opinion on this? Since we clear automatically, I'm not worried about logistics. I am guessing that smaller units per contract increases liquidity, but I'm not really sure. It wouldn't be the end of the world to rebase later, but it would be enough of a pain that I'm curious what people think. Opinions welcome.

Thanks guys! I'm excited!

I like 1-1.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Quick updates, and a question:

1) I'm still trying to squash a Mt. Gox exchange bug (critical for launch), after that, I think I will ease us into open beta. Hopefully today; more updates in this thread.

2) I have slotted 1 contract = 1 BTC. Most options markets are 1 contract = 100 of the underlying. Does anyone have a strong opinion on this? Since we clear automatically, I'm not worried about logistics. I am guessing that smaller units per contract increases liquidity, but I'm not really sure. It wouldn't be the end of the world to rebase later, but it would be enough of a pain that I'm curious what people think. Opinions welcome.

Thanks guys! I'm excited!
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 256
I'm wary, but intrigued. After what happened with the Bitcoin Credit Union, well, I'm suspicious of everything that is announced by a member with only a few posts.

But I'll give you a chance Wink

What happened with the bitcoin credit union?

The owner seems to have disappeared with everyone's money.
sr. member
Activity: 297
Merit: 251
Founder, Filmmaker, Fun Guy
I'm wary, but intrigued. After what happened with the Bitcoin Credit Union, well, I'm suspicious of everything that is announced by a member with only a few posts.

But I'll give you a chance Wink

What happened with the bitcoin credit union?
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Thanks! I totally appreciate the reputation questions; overall BitCoin forums have been pretty great, in my experience.

I'm still working on jurisdiction and legality in my home country. Once I'm sorted on that, I'll 'merge' my identities -- in my other bitcoin forum life, I'm a third-tier, been-around-since mid-2010 sort. Smiley
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 256
I'm wary, but intrigued. After what happened with the Bitcoin Credit Union, well, I'm suspicious of everything that is announced by a member with only a few posts.

But I'll give you a chance Wink
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