Topic: Price Stabilization Algorithm/Protocol/Transactions (Read 252 times)

By any chance, are you talking about this thread https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/coud-bitcoin-exchanges-use-a-circuit-breaker-174335?


While i agree with this point, many people wouldn't do it when they believe Bitcoin price will rise far higher in future. Even Bitcoin enthusiast usually only use small portion of their Bitcoin as currency.

I found it:
Bitcoin Reserve Board, by Elwar.

In my search I saw even an older thread talking about a similar subject:

Bot to operate a price bloc to stabilize price of BitCoins (2011)

And here someone speculating about such a "stabilization" already being done (also 2011)

This is also related, and the proposal (exchanges should reward market makers and penalize market takers with higher fees) seems to have succeeded to some extent.

There's a quite simple mechanism to be applied in this case: re-buy the bitcoins you've spent. The outcome (in fiat) is the same (approximately), but you're strengthening the Bitcoin ecosystem honouring merchants who accept it,  and contribute to its stability.

Would love a software solution for that (above all if connected with LN).

In general, a cartel can have some influence on a price, but it can never have absolute control in the long run without full control of the market. OPEC is an example of a cartel.

@OP:

This has been proposed as early as 2013 here at Bitcointalk (it was in March/April, just before the $100 mark, the first time I read about that). I don't remember the name of the exact thread, but the idea was the same: coordinate a number of traders to stabilize the price using "contrarian" trading techniques, at least to correct the most blatant under- and overvaluations. Basically "buying the dips" and "selling the peaks".

The problem is: someone will try to find a vector to profit and attack this scheme. There was a stablecoin called NuBits in 2014 or 2015. It tried essentially what you're proposing, coordinating and incentivizing traders to stabilize the currency around a USD 1 peg, but failed miserably after some months due to an attack on the peg. (Yep, and we all saw what happened to Terra/Luna these days ).

You can now say that the goal is not a peg but simply a smoother curve. The problem here: There are real variations in adoption/the supply-demand curve through the months and years. There are phases when the interest in Bitcoin grows, and so also demand grows. When these phases come to an end, supply (on exchanges! not the blockchain ... the 21 million limit can obviously not change) grows and a downtrend is likely. And vice versa.

If your trading group now tried to keep price relatively stable, e.g. inside some sort of "price corridor", there would be simply situations where the "corridor" would be unsustainable because either demand or supply are too high. The price would then very likely crash hard or FOMO hard, and the traders of the group who stick too closely to the "stabilization rules" or don't adapt would go broke.

I somewhat agree also with those arguing that you shouldn't try to stabilize against a potentially unstable fiat currency. (A basket of goods and services would be better.)

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Now: what could instead to be done? I've thought for years about that. There are different possible concepts, no one is perfect but all have different advantages:

1) A decentralized system to back Bitcoin with goods and services. This could work in the following way: Any merchant who sells goods or services would be able to participate (e.g. with a plugin for their ecommerce CMS, or on OpenBazaar). They put a price guarantee in BTC for i.e. 24 hours for their products. If the price of BTC tanks, then the customers are able to get the goods/services for lower prices. But: the merchants can also profit, as in downtrends they would see their sales volume increases as customers get the goods for a "discount". (This is above all interesting for those selling digital goods as they have very low or inexistent - if they're sold from the producer - unit costs.). Important: that doesn't need centralized coordination at all, each merchant independently sets their own rules.

2) Using financial products (as smart contracts or on centralized platforms) to follow Moving Averages, preferrently longer ones like the EMA-200. While this would not affect Bitcoin's stability directly it would give an opportunity to risk-averse holders. They could invest in a product which represents a SMA or EMA, and thus be somewhat protected from the worst crashes - but you trade it of course for the possibility to sell at bubble peaks.

3) Using options (e.g. put options to protect against a too deep crash) and techniques like collars. Could potentially also be done in a decentralized way using atomic swaps.

4) In general: use Bitcoin more as a currency, as this leads to more liquidity and also to create price expectations (e.g. "A house is worth around 10-20 BTC").

All these things would not impact Bitcoin's stability directly, but indirectly: Risk-averse groups would have methods to protect themselves from a crash while profiting from the general positive longterm trend. So they would be more unlikely to panic in a downtrend, and the price curve could get smoother. They also would potentially increase liquidity (goods and services are also a form of liquidity) and thus lower volatility systematically.

The problem with such schemes is that you'd be hard-pressed to find a bunch of pump-n'-dump people who'd want to stabilize the price - most will just be insterested in increasing their own personal fortunes only (not even those of the group). And such behavious is prevalent particularly in the domain of cryptocurrencies. Trust is a very important factor here.

The problem is that OP is tackling the wrong place to solve the volatility problem.
We do want volatility (or better say irrational market behavior) to decrease but the solution is not to introduce a centralized power that decides the price.

To solve problems you should first see what is causing the problem and then solve that. In this case the small market (ie. thin order books on CEX), too many uneducated people (aka weak hands) pouring into the market who then panic sell, margin trade options that allow people to borrow bitcoin to dump, and finally the market manipulators that have a lot of money.
You can fight these by introducing a centralized "pump and dump" group that tries to control the price.

Was not going to respond, but I just had to say why would we we want price stabilization?
1BTC will always be worth 1BTC
Even now with crypto falling there are some fiats that have fallen more. So if it was pegged to those how would you handle it?
Do you use the US $ or the Euro or what to determine your stable price?

If you can't handle the fact that there is no way to do it or the fact that it should not be done anyway how about the fact that if you want a stablecoin go get some altcoin like USDT.

-Dave

That means the buffer capacity been double price resistance protocol will fit in to a sort of Algorithmic pool.  But think of it this way if we have this run outside a decentralized cryptographic proof personal interest might set in. Which ever way the bitcoin price follows someone will always make profit so having a cryptographic watch over the system stairs equilibrium more like a collective interest. 

One more thing to add is that the supply of bitcoin is fixed, programmed, 6.25 BTC now, 3.125 BTC after etc., regardless of what's the demand the supply curve is constant, in contrast with every other asset on this planet. This makes it more vulnerable to the changes in the demand as there's no change in the supply that can counterbalance the equilibrium price.

As for "price stabilization", what in the nature is stable to begin with? The USD isn't "stable, period". It's just stably decreasing.

It is not possible to use algorithms to force the price of an asset to remain stable. Look at what is happening with TerraUSD/Luna right now.

It is best to acknowledge that bitcoin has no specific underlying value, nor is it backed by any specific assets, but rather that its value is set by the free market based on the market's perception of its value, and usefulness to its holders.

Trying to make Bitcoin more stable using connection with some assets that are only fictionally stable like fiat currencies is Sisyphus work, especially in time when hyperinflation kicks in.
Look what people in power did to make dollar and euro look more stable, they cheated most of the people to trust government while they print more of that stuff all the time.
For me it's much more important thing to have stable code base and development for Bitcoin, everything else is just a noise and time wasting.

In addition to the above answers, I want to point out that this is primarily an economic problem, not a technological one. It cannot be solved with algorithms. The only way to possibly stamp out volatility is to tightly control the supply and demand of the currency, which in the case of a decentralized crypto like Bitcoin is impossible.

You are forgetting that "traders" want volatility not stability! That is the way they make profit. Not to mention that what you are describing could easily turn into a pump and dump group when this so called "pool" with access to large amount of funds could manipulate the market to maximize the profit of the participants.

Why do you try to avoid the obvious?
Exchanges can't do shit if they don't have the money to counter such a thing.
Ignoring the fact that you're turning bitcoin in a centralized bank controlled currency, just going to touch on the stable part

You can only do this when you have money in your pocket so if somebody doesn't find a buyer at 30k you put a wall there and you buy it instead of the guy offering 29k. There is no magical algorithm and there is no money behind any other token out there, you can't stabilize anything with a promise of payment! The only way would be for every exchange to have a reserve that would match the number of bitcoins it has deposited on behalf of the clients and not accept bitcoins it can't cover. So if Binance would allow 100k  BTC deposits they would need to have 3 billion $ , USD, united states dollars, not usdt, usdc, sudc, usdfky, and every time somebody deposits one BTC and more 30k hard cash.

I've argued a lot these days with some that don't understand that behind the market cap of anything, be it stocks or tokens there is no money, so in case nobody wants to pay a dime for that stock or token the actual value is ZERO! Look how nobody wanted Luna, it went from 20 billion to 300 million because there weren't 20 billion there in the first place.


Community, lol.
Have some coffee as you're not seeing the millions strong pack of hyenas that would chew on every cent they could get their paws on.

I figured as much, this is where the bitcoin community may need to wise up and realize that they must "come/unite" together and not play along with yo-yo schemes. Long term the bitcoin holders will be better of as the bitcoin price starts to go up, up, up etc.

The idea here is to not fully stabilize the coin, because that will most likely be impossible as the true/real market demands go up or down, but at least it takes the swing out of it and makes it less attractive for market manipulators to manipulate the market, there will be less profit in it for them, maybe even a loss

To expand on this idea and not cause blockchain "bloat".

Perhaps a number of exchanges could become centralized places where these groups of traders can united in "exchange stabilization groups".

The exchange then contacts these traders whenever a large buy or sell transaction happen.

This exchange(s) then tries to counter act this large buy or sell, by uniting transactions from these traders into their exchange accounting software.

Finally the exchange issues a "stabilization transaction" towards the blockchain, where these kinds of stabilization transactions are prioritized by miners and are added to blockchain free of any transaction cost.

Multiple smaller exchanges can then work together to try and stabilize the price of the coin, but issueing only a a few of transactions.

If the currency you're buying bitcoin also drops in price you have to pull more and more to keep the bitcoin price level, if more people sell bitcoins and shitcoins than the ones that buy it you can't achieve stability. How many Weimar, Venezuela, Hungary 44, and Zimbabwe episodes do you need to understand that a permanent peg in times of crisis is impossible unless you have enough cash stashed aside, which by default invalidates the crisis. And having tokens doesn't change a thing, to prop Bitcoin's price against the USD you need USD, not tokens that are going down in value as well and nobody wants to buy but completely the opposite, everyone dumps.

Seems like the show Do Con scheme rather than making people aware of how unstable this is is making them come up with even worse ideas.



 

Here is a vague idea to stabilize the price of bitcoin somewhat.

Bitcoin owners/traders/companies interested in stabilizing the bitcoin price could "unite" into some kind of special pool of traders.

Each trader has a "buffer capacity" which can be used to buy or sell bitcoins with some other currency on exchanges.

They are all connected to each other via some protocol, either centralized or preferably decentralized.

Once the bitcoin price starts dropping, one of the traders is chosen to buy some bitcoins with it's buffer capacity.

As long as the bitcoin price keeps dropping, another trader is chosen to again buy some bitcoins with it's buffer capacity.

This continue until the bitcoin price is somewhat stabilized.

If the opposite happens and the bitcoin price rises, then a random trader from this pool is selected, or it could even be round robin, and then some bitcoins from the buffer capacity is sold.

So the buffer capacity could be like a double capacity buffer. Some bitcoins in the buffer and some other currency in the buffer.

Then some bitcoins are sold from this buffer to make the bitcoin price rise less steeple.

Such an algorithm and protocol should reduce the up and down swings somewhat and make bitcoin more resistent against price manipulation by large ammounts of bitcoin buying and selling to make it yo-yo and make it unstable for trading goods and services.

The aid this group in "price stabilization" a special transaction type could be added to bitcoin, which miners will allow to be included in the next block, where no transaction costs/fees are applied by the miners, in an effort from/of miners to help in the stabilization of the coin price.

If miners benefit from a more stable price is unknown to me.