Topic: Predictious.com | The Premier Bitcoin Prediction Market | Trade & Win Bitcoins! - page 15. (Read 33340 times)

Here's another strange thing with the fees in their current form.

Suppose there are two buy orders, one at 0.99 mBTC and the other at 1 mBTC. It would actually be better for a seller to sell to the 0.99 mBTC order rather than the 1.0 mBTC order.

9.01 mBTC per short share + 0.05 mBTC fee = 9.06 mBTC paid per short share for the order at 0.99
9 mBTC per short share + 0.1 mBTC fee = 9.1 mBTC paid per short share for the order at 1.0

This is yet another reason why fees would be better if they were a fixed percentage of each trade rounded up to .01 mBTC.

I see margin linking makes lots of sense.  All the candidates can't all win.

I've been communicating a handful of smaller suggestions and fixes to the site owners, but I'm posting here about one bigger change that I'd like to see and that I think would make this site a lot more usable. It's actually two changes but I think they have a lot of synergy.

What's the issue?

Predictious has many events with dozens of various outcomes of which only one can wind up occurring. For example, the FHM Sexiest Woman, 2016 US President, NCAA Div 1 Basketball champion, etc... Naturally, each event like this has a handful of front-runners and then a large group of long shots who are ~3% or less to win. Besides this, there are other contracts - like 'bitcoin price to reach $2000 in 2013' - that are similarly unlikely to occur. Personally I find these long shots interesting and fun to bet on, but regardless of my tastes these markets exist on Predictious and they should be traded.

What's the problem?

Unfortunately, the current structure of the site makes it excessively difficult and/or expensive to trade these types of long shots. I believe this is so for two reasons:

1) The fee is excessive at the extreme ends of the share prices. For a share price between 1 and 9 mBTC (corresponding to 10%-90% probability), the fee per each share traded is 0.1 mBTC. I don't think this is unreasonable, and it's especially cheap for the 3 to 7 mBTC range where the vig is low compared to most traditional betting websites. At prices below 1 mBTC or above 9 mBTC, the fee per share drops in half to 0.05 mBTC, which makes sense since the fee as it relates to share price increases the further you get from 5 mBTC.

However, as prices dip under 0.5 mBTC and lower (or above 9.5 btc) the fee becomes very significant. A "round trip" of buying and selling shares incurs a fee of 0.1 mBTC per share. If you buy shares at 0.1 mBTC and then sell them at 0.2 mBTC, all of your profit will be eaten up by fees even though you sold shares at twice the price you bought them for. Even if you simply buy shares at 0.25 mBTC and hold them, you will pay a fee equivalent to 20% of your purchase. Compare this to buying and holding at 5 mBTC, where the fee is a mere 2% of your purchase.

2) Currently, Predictious does not support margin linking. What is margin linking, you might ask?

Suppose I have 95 mBTC on my account. I decide to short ten shares of 'Mr. X to win US Presidency in 2016' at 0.5 mBTC a share - ignore fees for the sake of this example. My margin required for this transaction is 95 mBTC, since I am effectively paying 95 mBTC for 10 short shares that can expire worthless, leaving me with 0 mBTC.

Now suppose I decide to short 10 shares of Mr. Y to be President in the same event, also at 0.5 mBTC a share. Currently, Predictious will require another 95 mBTC available balance on my account for me to place this order. Ideally, however, I should be able to place this order with no additional margin. In fact, my margin required should be reduced by 5 mBTC if the order is filled. Before, the worst case scenario for me was if Mr X wins President and I lost my 95 mBTC investment. If I short Mr. Y as well, he and Mr. X can't win at the same time. My new worst case scenario is that either Mr X or My Y win the presidency, which would give me a loss of 95 mBTC on one event and a profit of 5 mBTC on the other event for a total loss of 90 mBTC. Predictious would currently keep 190 mBTC on margin for this position whereas only 90 mBTC is required.

Why is this a problem? Without margin linkage, the margin required for shorting multiple contracts within the same event can be very high. There is opportunity cost and risk associated with having funds tied up on websites for long periods of time. Margin is a requirement for a site like predictious to function but it should be minimized wherever possible. There's just not very much appeal in tying up large amounts of funds for months or possibly more in hopes of a return of 5% or less.

Combined with the relatively more significant fees for trading shares beneath 0.5 mBTC, I believe this strongly discourages activity on the aforementioned "long shot" contracts of which there are many on predictious.

What's my solution?

I realize that implementing margin linking is not a minor development effort, but I hope that this is something that the predictious devs will have time to work on in the coming months. I think it's a worthwhile goal.

As for adjusting the fees, I imagine this can be done more easily. I propose one of two adjustments:

1) Add new rules for the fees on predictious (or rules like this):

"For shares bought or sold between m฿0 and m฿0.5: ฿0.00002 per share
For shares bought or sold between m฿9.5 and m฿10: ฿0.00002 per share"

or

2) Replace the fixed fees with a new, simple rule (or one like it):

"Fee per share traded will be 2% of the share price rounded up to the nearest m฿0.01."

I would prefer something like the latter. I prefer a gradual decline of fees as opposed to the two inflection points that currently exist at 1 and 9 mBTC. Furthermore, "2% fee" is an easy concept for regular users to grasp. I think it's easier to understand that you're paying 2% on each transaction rather than "฿0.0001 per share" traded.

I hope this is helpful and I'd be glad to see these solutions implemented in one way or another.

I see the entertainment section getting big. so many different types of bets you can have on celebs, tv shows, box office ect...

1. It would be great to be able to see history of trades that occurred for a given contract. I know there is a graph, but I'm talking about a list.

2. Tell us what the trade volume is for each contract! Lifetime, 24hr, 7d or something like that.

3. I always want to look at the order book when I'm placing an order, but in the current UI they are on two separate pages.

We've now added this event: BCS National Championship Game 2014.

Thanks for the suggestion, we're going to look into adding it.

New Market on Predictious:

• Golden Globe 2014 Best Picture Drama
• Golden Globe 2014 Best Comedy/Musical
• Golden Globe 2014 Best Actor in a Drama
• Golden Golden Globe 2014 Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy
• Six Nations Championship Winner 2014

Could you make a contract for the NCAA football championship game?

New Market on Predictious:

• NCAA Men's Basketball 2014

New Market on Predictious:

• Option Spread Bitcoin Network Difficulty (block 276192 - End December)
• Bitcoin Network Difficulty
• Oscars 2014 Best Director

You're correct!

If you think Hillary Clinton will win the next Presidential elections, you can place an order to buy a long share Hillary Clinton. You can place an order at any price between mBTC0 and mBTC10. Let's say you place an order at mBTC 3. If somebody is willing to take your bet, you will receive a long share. If Hillary Clinton wins, the long share earns you mBTC 10, which means you made mBTC 7 profit.

Now if you don't think she'll win the elections, you can short sell a share. Let's say you short sell at mBTC 8, you receive 8 mBTC for selling, but you will also have to pay a mBTC 10 deposit in case you lose (we don't allow margin trading). So you will effectively pay mBTC 2. If you are right, you get the deposit back so you made mBTC 8. If you lose, you don't get the deposit back (it goes to the winner) so you will have lost mBTC 2.

Probably a really stupid question, I'm unfamiliar with derivatives, is this the nature of the game? I can buy into Hillary Clinton winning the next election, If I'm right then those who bet against her losing , their bitcoins are lost and go to those who bet on her winning. Is this correct? How does the payout work? ELI5 please.

New Market on Predictious:

• FIFA Club World Cup 2013 Winner
• FIFA Club World Cup 2013 Matches
• Brazilian Presidential election 2014
• Next Microsoft CEO

You can suggest contracts, please see here for instructions.

we can add our predictions or just have to follow your predictions

Thanks for the suggestion, we've now added it to our list of feature requests.


Yes please feel free to add here. Or you can also reach out to us directly through this form.

Is this the right thread to offer feedback and suggestions for the website? I'm overall quite happy and impressed with the platform you have, but I still have a few items on my wishlist that I think would make the site better.

Currently, I can only view 1 page of transaction history. Can this be changed so I can see my entire history?

https://predictious.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1222008-what-are-the-fees-on-predictious-

Here's a question. How do you make money?  Are there trading fees?  because you're not the market makers.