Topic: ICBIT Derivatives Market (USD/BTC futures trading) - LIVE - page 3. (Read 97654 times)

Each of the contracts has different terms.   

BUG4 (BTC/USD-2.14) settles Feb 21st, and gets price based on the volume weighted average price (“VWAP”) across the three operating exchanges with the most volume in BTC-USD over the previous 30 days.

So eyeballing the BitcoinCharts data, looks like Mt. Gox will definitely be one of the top three over the past 30 days (in terms of BTC/USD volume).

Now what impact Mt. Gox will have on settlement day will be determined by the (24 hour) VWAP at Mt. Gox at the settlment time (20:00 UTC) on that day.   So if the top three (volume of BTC/USD) are Mt. Gox, BTC-E and Bitstamp and the (24 hour) VWAP at each is 600 (Mt. Gox), 750 (BTC-e) and 750 (Bitstamp) then the average of those three is 700 (2,100 / 3) and that becomes the final settlement price.

Now BUH4 (BTC/USD-3.14), which settles March 14th, uses the 24 hour VWAP from the exchange that had the most volume (in terms of BTC/USD) over the past 30 days.  So this time, eyeballing the data, it looks like Bitstamp would be the exchange with the most volume.  And thus, no -- MT. Gox divergence would not impact the settlement price.

And BUJ4 (BTC/USD-4.14) specifies the exchange (Bitstamp) so there too Mt. Gox divergence would not impact the settlement price.

Has the Settlement Price changed because of the divergence of MtGox?

Some of the press coverage we've got during recent two months. It's not quantity, but quality of the non-biased sources. Sometimes they are harsh regarding us, but it just proves the fact that we could provide an even better service.

CNN
WIRED
CoinDesk

More to come!

OK, it had to be bad to be more insecure that no GA

It's still required to withdraw funds, however we are working on a newer version of a more secure and more user friendly GA module. Will be ready within ~3 or 4 days.

The old one was disabled due to concerns about possible security vulnerabilities.

What happened to Google Authenticator 2FA?

The last few times I was logging in, I was no longer asked for my GA code.   

BTC/USD-1.14 futures contract (BUF4) settled 15.01.2014 at $864.9
Total trading volume for this contract was 575498 contracts ($5'754'980 in US dollars). Open interest by expiration was 35254 contracts ($352'540 in US dollars).

Full trading history:
Tick data (including open interest values after each trade): https://icbit.se/data/sec/BUF4/BUF4_ticks.zip
15 minutes OHLCV candlesticks: https://icbit.se/data/sec/BUF4/900.zip
Daily OHLCV candlesticks: https://icbit.se/data/sec/BUF4/86400.csv

Enjoy!

That's why I insist on using Twitter. However, it's banned in China, so not the best method. The website itself will have a news feed soon.

Some issue is occurring again.  If there is a maintenance outage, there should be some message displayed on the site.  And there should be some communication of status out-of-band, ... perhaps here on this thread, or/and on the @ICBIT_se Twitter account maybe?

There was a problem with DNS information, so that API server was resolving to wrong IP address in some cases. This was fixed shortly, sorry for inconvenience.

What's going on with icbit.se? After logging I don't see any data except price graph.

Finally permanent API keys are available, coming along with a new (better and more secure) authentication method, which would also support upcoming "simpler" API too.

Dear trader bot developers! Old access method still works, but you need to switch to the new one as soon as possible.
There is SharpTrader in C# as a reference implementation, and updated description available in the API specification page.

For those of you who are available with BitStamp signature generation, you will find signature generation algorithm in ICBIT remarkably similar so that you can reuse your existing code.

The only drawback is that socket.io doesn't allow to send authorization error messages, so unfortunately it may be hard to debug. To compensate this we provide those reference implementations and you can watch last used nonce value in the API keys page.

Good! Only one thing left:


Using an actual BTC future is no evil. It has no drawbacks!

You are right.

And really the ICBIT futures are USD futures settled in BTC, but they are "marketed" as BTC futures, so "BUY" buys BTC and sells USD.

I agree it is confusing - but in the end it is probably less confusing that buying is buying BTC just like everywhere else.  A choice between two evils.
 

You are right, but it does not have anything to do with a 10USD future:

Entering a 10 USD future long:

1) You are not buying TODAY (hence the name future)
2) You are not buying something FOR 10USD. You are buying 10 USD.


So if the value of the USD goes up in the future you can sell your 10 USD you get from our futures contract for more, hence profit.

No, buying something for 10 USD TODAY is betting that the price of USD is going down.  If USD are cheaper in the future, you would have got fewer bitcoins in the future, and you keep the rest.

Buying anything that is worth 10USD is betting on USD value to go up. Thats why your buttons are wrong.

See also my edit, which explains why a change would not break anything.

While Fireball didn't answered this yet, I'll post some additional notes.

1) you are not "buying" 10 USD, you are "buying" 10 USD worth of bitcoins.
2) correct settlement formula is published in each contract's specs.
3) there is a "calculator" icon in the "New order" widget. You can try to give it some numbers to check what results you'll get with given contract. (Fees not calculated ATM)

As I understsand it, your BTC/USD-futures are futures on USD. By buying it or entering it long,  you agree to buy 10 USD at settelement date for the current future's price. Thus, disregarding clearing(which should cancel in the end), the settlement will be:

(1/(current spot price) - 1/(agreed futures price))*10 USD

(The reciprocals occur because prices are given in BTC and not USD.)

Of course, as with any future, a LONG futures contract profits from a rising price in the underlying. In this case from a rise in USD price (in BTC), i.e. from a fall in BTC value. The same can easily be seen by looking at the settlement formula above. A LONG 10 USD futures contract is actually betting against Bitcoins.

So far so good.

My question is, why do you put this text on your trading platform right above the BUY and SELL buttons?

https://icbit.se/WebTrade/Account/Futures.aspx

I think this is not consistent. BUYing a contract on your platform is actually SELLING a futures contract as described on https://icbit.se/BUF4.

Could you please clarify?

EDIT:

The possibility to hedge miner's fixed USD (i.e. variable BTC) expenses into fixed BTC expenses is untouched by the way the contact is designed. A future with a lot of 1BTC would can be used "exactly" in the same way as a 10USD future. Then your BUY and SELL button would make more sense to me.

EDIT 2:

I am not saying that it is wrong to use a future on 10 USD and then quote its price in USD/BTC, as many others have complained. I am saying, that betting on a BTC rise is called "selling" such a contract. And this fact is independent of using BTC/USD or USD/BTC in the quotes.

Whoah!  That caused your market to crash.