ICBIT Derivatives Market (USD/BTC futures trading) - LIVE - page 31.

guruvan

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Quote from: Fireball on December 11, 2012, 11:11:18 AM

Quote from: killerstorm on December 09, 2012, 12:14:02 PM

Quote from: segabtc on December 09, 2012, 12:03:25 PM

it cancels the order but also I lose all other orders info on that window til I "reload" the page. Can we get a "reload" button like the "Balances" window has?

It doesn't need a reload button, bug which wipes your orders should be fixed instead.

Ok, this is fixed now (don't forget to reload your page to refresh javascripts), and Your Orders table is updating nicely now. Also some people reported situation that they are getting duplicates in the table - this should not happen anymore.

Yes this was fixed

My poor browser still shows hundreds of megs of ram consumed after a short time & I'm noticing that it's eating 25% cpu (sustained, on my little netbook)

Thanks for your hard work.

EDIT:

Quote from: Fireball on December 12, 2012, 11:23:50 AM

Quote from: picobit on December 12, 2012, 05:14:07 AM

I have not looked closer into the Gold and Oil options, but since the prices here are listed in BTC I am a bit surprised to the reciprocal of the price in the equations.

Thanks, I will check the equations on the web to make them match the real calculations, but as for Gold and Oil, they don't use such sophisticated pricing. Price is quoted directly in BTC, so they are classic linear futures (the 1/x non-linearity is not present there).

The equations for both are VM = (1/PriceClose - 1/PriceOpen) * W/R;

Fireball

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Quote from: picobit on December 12, 2012, 05:14:07 AM

I have not looked closer into the Gold and Oil options, but since the prices here are listed in BTC I am a bit surprised to the reciprocal of the price in the equations.

Thanks, I will check the equations on the web to make them match the real calculations, but as for Gold and Oil, they don't use such sophisticated pricing. Price is quoted directly in BTC, so they are classic linear futures (the 1/x non-linearity is not present there).

picobit

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Decor in numeris

Hi Fireball,

There seems to be something wrong with the equations giving the variation margin on your web page. The actual calculation is OK, it is just the web page that gives the wrong expression.

The variation margin should be the price difference times the size of the futures contract. As the actual contract is a futures contract for -10 USD, traded in BTC, but the price is listed as the price in USD/BTC, a reciprocal comes in, confusing matters a bit, and the equation becomes (on your web page):

Vm = (1/p2 - 1/p1) * W/R

Here 1/p is the "real" price (in BTC/USD), and W/R should be the contract size, i.e -10 USD, giving a variation margin in BTC. However, on the web pages https://icbit.se/BUZ2 and https://icbit.se/BUH3 you list W = 0.0001 USD and R = -0.001 USD, giving W/R = 0.1 (no unit). So both the magnitude and the unit is wrong. The example at the bottom of the page correctly uses W/R = -10 (but leaves out all units). And the actual variations margins calculated in your trading platform are correct as well, fortunately

I have not looked closer into the Gold and Oil options, but since the prices here are listed in BTC I am a bit surprised to the reciprocal of the price in the equations.

Fireball

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Quote from: killerstorm on December 09, 2012, 12:14:02 PM

Quote from: segabtc on December 09, 2012, 12:03:25 PM

it cancels the order but also I lose all other orders info on that window til I "reload" the page. Can we get a "reload" button like the "Balances" window has?

It doesn't need a reload button, bug which wipes your orders should be fixed instead.

Ok, this is fixed now (don't forget to reload your page to refresh javascripts), and Your Orders table is updating nicely now. Also some people reported situation that they are getting duplicates in the table - this should not happen anymore.

Fireball

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Activity: 674

Merit: 500

I deployed the Accounts page update. Now, along with minor visual improvements, this page is going to require a one time password to be entered for any withdrawal operation, if you have tied Google Authenticator to your account.
Finally, it makes the "one time passwords done right", as Stephen said.

killerstorm

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If I understand correctly, profits can be capped only if settlement price is so far from previous clearing price that it can eat through required initial margin.

I don't know how much is "too far", but probably it is related to price range.

Although it looks like it is possible to bit through price range: (1/11.952-1/14.608)*10= 0.152, but initial margin is only 0.1141. But it's kinda unlikely scenario.

So, well, unless something extraordinary happens on mtgox and if people will be arbitraging on ICBIT to prevent huge price swings there should be no problem.

Stephen Gornick

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Quote from: Fireball on December 11, 2012, 05:53:18 AM

there is a probability that profits from the futures will be capped because there are customers with open positions who may not have enough money in their accounts at a given settlement price. We'll provide full disclosure of the situation.

I sense foreboding.

So someone that closes a position today gets 100% of the gains but someone holding to expiration gets capped? And there's no knowing by how much?

Fireball

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Is it fair to assume it will be Mt.Gox's rates?

Yes

Where will the official feed of prices/volumes to be averaged come from?

Mt.Gox website (https://mtgox.com, "Weighted Avg" field atop of it) which provides sliding window 24h volume weighted average.

What hours/timezone define this "contract settlement day"?

UTC

I believe 20:00 UTC is the daily settlement time I've seen used there. Will BUZ2 trade until that time? Will your official VWAP number come out and variation margin settlement happen immediately afterwards or should we expect some delay for calculation/settlement?

Yes, trading will stop at 20:00 UTC as usual, and the contract will be settled already after clearing. Some delay would happen, but the VWAP will be used as of 20:00 UTC from MtGox website.

Any other potential "gotchas" you think we should watch out for?

Yes, depending on the MtGox USD VWAP at the settlement day, there is a probability that profits from the futures will be capped because there are customers with open positions who may not have enough money in their accounts at a given settlement price. We'll provide full disclosure of the situation.

Additionally, today the update to the Accounts tab will be deployed, featuring some visual improvements and support for Google Auth one time passwords.

segabtc

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And will there be a"trading fee" since if we hold till the end, these contracts should just expire, correct. for example, If I am hold 10 futures and the previous close, lets say is 13.00 and the VWAP of Gox, again assume, is 13.50, do i get the var at closing, get paid for the difference, and then the position is closed without trading fees? Just trying to prepare for this coming expiration, and would like to know how you plan on dealing with this final closing. Thanks, doing a great job BTW.

toffoo

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Quote from: Stephen Gornick on December 10, 2012, 09:27:38 PM

... with just a few more trading days remaining.

Fireball,

That reminds me to ask, perhaps soon it would be a good idea to clarify exactly how the settlement of this expiring contract will function. This will be the first futures expiration I've seen since I started to look at this exchange a few months back (I'm not sure if it's the first overall) and it's probably best to spell out here exactly how this works to avoid any unpleasant surprises or attempts at manipulation.

The (relatively sparse) contract specification page https://icbit.se/BUZ2 says:

Quote

Last trading day: 15.12.2012
Settlement date: 15.12.2012
Settlement: Positions are settled based on the volume weighted average rate of USD/BTC on the exchange with the most average monthly volume (for the month of contract settlement) during the contract settlement day by transferring variation margin between contract holders.

Is it fair to assume it will be Mt.Gox's rates?
Where will the official feed of prices/volumes to be averaged come from?
What hours/timezone define this "contract settlement day"?
I believe 20:00 UTC is the daily settlement time I've seen used there. Will BUZ2 trade until that time? Will your official VWAP number come out and variation margin settlement happen immediately afterwards or should we expect some delay for calculation/settlement?
Any other potential "gotchas" you think we should watch out for?

Thanks!

smickles

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Quote from: Stephen Gornick on December 10, 2012, 09:27:38 PM

Quote from: Fireball on September 08, 2012, 11:37:46 AM

2. Because of that, trading participants will try to "arbitrage" this fact and will move the price quite close to that value before trading stops.

And that's exactly what's happening.

So the BUH3 (March 15, 2013) BTC/USD futures are in la-la land at $16 and change:
- https://icbit.se/BUH3

While BUZ2 (December 15, 2012) is now within 1% of the Mt. Gox last / spot market price with just a few more trading days remaining.

16 is lalaland? I was trying to buy it up to 50 b/c I fully expect it to be there in march jk Wink

Stephen Gornick

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Quote from: Fireball on September 08, 2012, 11:37:46 AM

2. Because of that, trading participants will try to "arbitrage" this fact and will move the price quite close to that value before trading stops.

And that's exactly what's happening.

So the BUH3 (March 15, 2013) BTC/USD futures are in la-la land at $16 and change:
- https://icbit.se/BUH3

While BUZ2 (December 15, 2012) is now within 1% of the Mt. Gox last / spot market price with just a few more trading days remaining.

guruvan

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FYI, Fireball:
- memory leak issue seems to still be pretty serious
- seems since I mentioned memory the first time - now whenever I place or cancel any order, all my pending orders disappear from their frame until reload the page.

Thanks for looking into it!!

EDIT: yea.. see more above with the same issue.

segabtc

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damn skippy, love it when a developer knows his sh|t!

Fireball

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Quote from: segabtc on December 09, 2012, 12:29:30 PM

ok that would work also!

I'm gonna check, thanks for reporting.
In fact, I introduced a change in the orders table updating algorithm a few days ago, so probably it's related to that.

segabtc

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ok that would work also!

killerstorm

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Quote from: segabtc on December 09, 2012, 12:03:25 PM

it cancels the order but also I lose all other orders info on that window til I "reload" the page. Can we get a "reload" button like the "Balances" window has?

It doesn't need a reload button, bug which wipes your orders should be fixed instead.

segabtc

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Activity: 462

Merit: 250

Noticed this a day or two ago, when I cancel an order in the "Your Orders" window, it cancels the order but also I lose all other orders info on that window til I "reload" the page. Can we get a "reload" button like the "Balances" window has? Instead of reloading entire page, just something that will refresh or reload that one window? Will save alot of bandwidth and server load. Again, I know it is the holiday season and this might not get done for a few weeks. Just suggestions for a better user experience for all. If not tell me to STFU! heheheh

guruvan

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True.

On further consideration, I suppose I wouldn't really notice this action if it was (considerably) more liquid, and there were more orders placed right at clearing time (that being the primary difference between icbit and current fiat-based futures exchanges)

Ichthyo

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The ICBIT pricing engine has clearly some kind of shortcoming, which can be used to game the settlement price in any futures market with low liquidity. As I've proposed some time ago already, I think it would be an interesting experiment how those markets would develop if the engine used the weighted average of the last trading session for the daily settlement. Would those markets dry out, because being completely boring? or would such a change rather increase the inflow, since they are less risky then? Bitcoin is a nice field for experiments.

But I understand that Fireball tends to stay away from such experiments and prefers to keep the platform rather close to the behaviour of the futures known from the conventional finance industry.

Anyway, whenever our 8'o clock Charley succeeds with gaming the rate away, this creates nice arb possibilities in the next trading session(s). And, obviously, if there was a whole bunch of trading bots just waiting to catch such possibilities, the problem would be mostly gone.

Bottom line: while I'm not completely happy with the behaviour of the engine, at least it is predictable, and in the end, the possibility of such (limited) manipulation games is for me just part of the risk equation.

Topic: ICBIT Derivatives Market (USD/BTC futures trading) - LIVE - page 31. (Read 97702 times)