Recently, on the trading platform 10101 (
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.62989500), the interface for opening futures positions has changed. It's no longer possible to specify the position size in bitcoins; it is now calculated only in the number of contracts, which means in dollars. This led me to some reflections.
One of 10101's main products is "synthetic dollar" PEGZ (
https://bolt.fun/story/pegz-how-far-have-we-got-1-lightning-stablecoin--1102). I think that the term "synthetic dollar backed by a short position in bitcoin futures" may sound quite confusing to a mass audience. What if we call it something else?
To make it clearer, let's remember why futures are used initially. In any textbook, one can read that people buy futures when they intend to acquire a certain asset in the future and want to lock in its price now.
Now, let's ask: who are the people interested in "synthetic dollar PEGZ"?
1. These people own bitcoins.
2. They plan to exchange these bitcoins for dollars in the future.
3. They want to fix the price now to ensure they get the desired amount of dollars, regardless of future exchange rate fluctuations.
Returning to the essence of futures, it becomes clear that these people need to buy futures on dollars to achieve their goal. But this is precisely what we see now in the 10101 interface. It offers futures whose size is calculated in dollars, but for some reason, they are called bitcoin futures, and they are offered for us to sell, not to buy.
If this is a bitcoin futures contract, then its size should be calculated in bitcoins. And if the size is calculated in dollars, then it's not a "synthetic dollar backed by a short position," but a regular futures contract on dollars.
That's what PEGZ is.
PEGZ is a futures contract on dollars.
When we lock up our bitcoins in the DLC channel and receive PEGZ in return, we are buying futures on dollars.
If, in the future, someone starts accepting PEGZ as a means of payment, it will be a payment in dollar futures.
To make everything simple and clear, the following changes are needed:
- Swap the BUY and SELL buttons (where it currently says SELL, write BUY, and vice versa).
- Refer to the traded futures not as "inverse bitcoin futures" but as regular linear futures on dollars.
- And conduct transactions based on the dollar-to-bitcoin exchange rate (not bitcoin-to-dollar as they are conducted now).
This applies not only to the case of "synthetic dollars" but to trading inverse futures on any platform. What sounds clearer:
"I bought an inverse bitcoin futures contract with a size of $10 at a price of $30,000 per bitcoin"
or
"I sold a $10 futures contract on dollars at a rate of 3,333 satoshis per dollar"?