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Introducing http://www.bit-sim.trade/ (http://www.bit-sim.trade/).

To play:
start in whatever currency you'd like to start in. (Hint: if you think it's going down before up, start in USD!) Your first trade will be the buy after that. This is an all in/all out game, there is no tapering in/out. Account value is king, and PL for tiebreakers.  Try to work your way to the top!



Bug report:
A bug when repeatedly hitting the trade button will cause you to end up with 0 BTC, 0 USD and a -100% PL.      ETA for a fix, 11-9-2016 FIXED!

This post will be updated as necessary and will include any change logs and bug fixes.
Global features include:

• Fully automated trading. Just the click of a button and in seconds, the scoreboard reflects your new position
• Almost real-time price and scoreboard updating (limited only by the rate that Coindesk updates their BPI [~1 minute]
• Trade preview. Mouse over the trade button and you get an output of what your new balance would be if you execute right now
• 8 hour rule is out... With a small fee on each trade, there is no need for someone to be stuck in a position for picking a bad trade from time to time.

Change log and new features for 5-10-2016

• Current price in the browser tab
• Limit trading with lower "maker" fee schedule
• The server gets the price once, and individual users get the price from our server resulting in a 99% reduction in Coindesk API hits and greater reliability for participants

User specific features include:

• You choose to start with $100 or $100 worth of BTC at registration so no more waiting for your desired position after being added
• individual stats on the right sidebar. Balances, PL and last trade price (for those who forget between trades)
• Once logged in, your row in the scoreboard is highlighted in yellow to be easier to find

Change log and new features for 5-10-2016

• Users have far less restriction in using special chars for passwords for added security

How to play:
Visit http://:bit-sim.trade
Register easily with no email. Log in and start trading immediately.

Some pictures or text of what you can expect?
Or link to v1.0?

Old game https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=890086.0

New game is fully automated
This post is what it looks like but a couple of added UI features https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=890086.msg15721253#msg15721253

Looking forward to it.

My advice is to make sure the site isn't hackable, since it will surely attract that kind of attention.
I would like to play, but if I'll get too much unwanted attention again (like PMs with dubious links) I would have to quit.

It should be secure... There is nothing accessible from the browser and sql injection is covered. With no actual money or monetary gain, why would someone waste time hacking it? they won't get emails since email isn't used. Not sure why anyone would hack it

edit, who/what were you getting?

Very cool project, RyNinDaCleM.

I'll definitely take a look when it launches.

https://i.imgur.com/WRrzSWz.png

Have fun!   8)

Thanks!

SIgned up and bought be some BTC

Question, how can non bitcointalk forum members participate?

Is the source code for your tool open source?

Anyone can play. I did not write anything to check against the forum usernames, so whatever... I put the placeholder as  "bitcointalk username" because it was a game here. Maybe I'll remove that part It is not open sourced at this time. I would like it to get more established and add some more features and gameplay options before someone can make a better version using my code :P

Ok, A bug has been found!
Don't hammer the trade button or you will end up with -100% PL and zero funds. I will have this fixed soon

I wanted to get into trading so a simulator is the best thing to do this with so you don't lose any of your bits playing the market. ;D

You are the perfect candidate for this!

I've got a surprise for the players rolling out in the next week or so. Stay tuned!

Lets get some more players in here too. Makes it more interesting even if you're a hodler

If the trading fee were 1/10th what it is now, we would be able to trade much smaller price movements. Plus, any nonzero fee will still lose out to random chance in the long run.

At  0.1% and $610 spot, we need to overcome a $0.61 price movement or spread to break even.
At 0.01% and $610 spot, we need to overcome a $0.06 price movement or spread to break even.

There have been a few scalp opportunities I wanted to play over the past few days, but the commission represented something like 25% of the potential profit so I passed.
The change would increase activity, but decrease realism / change it to be more like the chinese exchanges.
Anyhow, my two cents.

This I like...
I asked a while back what people thought would be a reasonable fee or spread to use as a way to keep the flipflopping to a minimum and I barely got any input. I think I originally had .1% or maybe even less, but .2% was decided on. Not only because it was the only other amount mentioned but also because it is about the average rate across normal exchanges.

I completely understand the lack in activity during such a flat boring time, which happens to be the perfect time to get in and choose sides, but I get it.

He who has no name, that will be patched  in the next 24hrs and your current user will be removed, so don't trade with that account and might as well start a new one with a name.  ::)

Registered!

Let the games begin...

Limit orders are here!
Simply set the price you want to execute a limit order at, and click the "Buy" or "Sell" button next to the price field. Still an all in, all out trade system, but now it can work for you when you can't watch the charts.
Limit orders has a lower "maker" type fee schedule. In the bottom, there is a new table which shows your open orders (Only your own, limit orders are not public like main stats) and has the cancel button when you change your mind.

Next order of business is to get mobile friendly and start refining the UI. As the scoreboard gets larger, that orders table will eventually be a long way down the page so a little optimization is going to become necessary.

If you like the game and want to help support it's development and the costs of continued operation, donations are greatly appreciated :)
1KkdKRUcvYjPnhjdhTwocd8Mn9HhP7n4TP

Also, if you have other ideas on features you'd like to see added in the future, don't hesitate to say it.

nice!

I did a little tweaking with the UI. Let me know what y'all think, and check it on mobile. I only have it set for a handful of devices, so let me know how it looks on yours and please specify what you are using so I can try to get the most complete list of popular smartphones/tablets working with the site.

*On the left, a "Limit Trade" button slides out the entry field and trade button. I will eventually make it sort of an "all trades" slide out for one form to make any type of trade rather than a market button and limit button which may just cause confusion to some.

*The table now only shows (or should show :P  ) the top 15 scores. It is scrollable, so you can always find your own standings. This is so that if there are 100, or 500 entrants eventually, you won't have to scroll all the way down to see your open orders.

Edit:
I also implemented the averaging system for new players entering now. I may need to tweak the algo, but it should be a lot closer after such a rise like we've had the past weeks.

There is a bug that displays last price as 1$ and -99.88% profit for me and others, please try to fix it.

Yes, I just now noticed this too and came straight here. I am away from my pc so an update will be difficult, but I will get on it.

Try not to trade for now... you don't want that locked in, thanks

Fixed! Thanks to my lightning fast partner, secousa. Thanks, dude!

Sorry that I didn't see this 6 hours ago, trade on!

Hi guys I've just joined up, waiting in USD now for a nice entry. The site looks really nice. :)

Just made my first buy @ $861.  8)

Nice catch!

Did you see the limit orders? Or is that what you used?

I used market buy, was watching the dump and just waited for a good moment to market buy. In a dump like this I prefer to do market orders and not risk my limit orders not getting hit.

Nice to see a little churn in the scoreboard. That dump caught you guys a little off guard. Good luck to all!

I just went up 11 positions!

This is a message to all: Keep playing, and if you're not in, get started! The top places in the board are constantly changing.  :)

It's always a good time to start trading!

Should have took my own advice, sold waiting for pullback to ~800 but then when it didn't go that deep I FOMO bought back in at 900. d'oh

Definitely getting interesting, guys! Keep it up  :D

Congrats to tzupy as the first trader to hit 100 trades and is yet in the top 5 on the scoreboard currently. Can't win at trading Bitcoin, eh?

He's at 102 trades. I'm next with 51. That bear is a machine!

I just begged Rynin to add a TROLLBOX to the game - what do you guys think?

Tzubear cant go wrong shorting BTC. Or wait.

A machine has no emotions, I do. The little failed pump spooked me (previously similar failed pumps were followed by large corrections) and I missed out on the real pump.
Out of my trades, a lot are crappy if not idiotic. Couldn't make up my mind to enter a position... If I would do the same on an exchange I would bleed money because of slippage.

Just found this thread... cool stuff!  Think I might play.

Welcome, and good luck!

Nice website, I'll register soon
And thanks for not putting a thousand trackers

Yup!

Congrats to tynx as the first player to double their account value. Glad this is more than a hodlers game.


No problem! It's not really my style to have a million cookies. It just isn't what I'm about.

I have been very busy lately, so not a lot of dev being accomplished. About the troll box, this can likely add a lot of bandwidth usage and require a lot upkeep as in moderation to an extent, so I will consider it but I do not guarantee anything.

About the trollbox you can look for an HTML IRC plugin and test it with a random, unused channel on a big server
And no moderation is needed IMO, in the worst case if people become stupid you just stop the test
But just do as you feel and can :)

Just for the record, the moderation is more in spam and unsafe links department. I wouldn't moderate core vs classic type talks like a certain thermos that shall remain unnamed.  :)

instead of an on-site trollbox perhaps a slack / discord / chatzy group could be opened for bit-simulator? while not ideal (in the sense that users would need to have 2 tabs open), it provides similar functionality to a trollbox

Since RyNinDaCleM is a bit busy these days with IRL things, I thought it would be a good time for me to push a small update to the simulator.

Bit-sim is now easier to use on mobile devices. Of course, since the screen size is smaller, there is less detail available on screen.. but now its easier to place trades and such via the mobile browser. For the full experience, a PC or something with a larger screen (like a tablet) is still needed.

While we've targeted the iPhone resolution for this update, we would really like to get feedback from users to see how the site appears on their mobile device of choice. If you prefer not to share that info publicly in the thread, send me a PM. In order for the report to be useful, I need to know the device information (example: Samsung Galaxy S7) and preferably a screenshot of how the site looks.

There was also a small bug fix related to the arrow next to the price. It was wrapping onto the next line, so we've placed it back in its place. 4 digits before the decimal problems  ::)

My iphone dropped in water while on vacay

Im now using a low end android Tecno phone. Cost me about $50. Mostly use my computer though.

But i will give it a try on my phone and share feedback.

Great tool!

Thanks guys

Question, do you guys plan to open source it? Or open it up to a wider audience via partnerships?

I mean, i have some trader who would like to paper trade, but they are not as knee deep into BTC as I am. So bitcointalk is a bit of an ask.

A webpage however, would be different.

Like a 'Kenyan' Bitcoin trading competition limited to people i know. That sort of thing.

Thinking out loud here

Afrikoin --

Open source: This is definitely something that RyN and I will discuss. I can state that at this moment, we have not had that discussion yet, and right now the code is still not optimal for publishing. If or when we publish, we want to make sure folks can understand what the code is doing, so there is a bit of cleanup and documentation that needs to take place before it could even get to that point.

As far as wider audience... the site is actually open to anyone that would like to register. They do not need to be a bitcointalk member, nor need to let us know who they are - just have to pick a handle and start paper trading. The target audience at this time is bitcointalk members, because the inspiration came from here.

Your idea for a "Kenyan" BTC trading competition is also something we have not looked into yet, but it definitely sounds interesting. We have briefly discussed competitions, but more in a public sense e.g. any user registered to the site can participate. I'll chat up RyN about this and see how he feels. Off the top of my head, we can accomplish this without open sourcing the code at this time - it would simply require cloning the code + database to another directory / subdomain.

For now, if you're interested in getting a private group set up, send me a PM and we can discuss it.

All --
Thanks to a user that sent me a PM with a screenshot of the site on Android, we fixed a bug related to the current price display.

Things are getting very tight at the top! Ten players within 5%.  :o

*snort*

https://i.imgur.com/dZxrIhs.gif

(Aside: following with interest, but didn't sign up yet... sorry :/)

Thank you.

will be in touch.

Take or leave all of this...
I'd love to see one of two growth paths:

1. Ability to choose your leverage amount, between say 1x and 10x, when you enter a trade.
2. The existing game remains unchanged, but a second, quarterly competition is added, wherein leverage can either be chosen within the aforementioned range, or at a fixed value to diversify the pack more rapidly for the shorter timeframe.  (Also no/smaller market fee, or no fee for limit orders, also to promote action)

The remainder are technical thoughts:

In thinking about a lowest-impact way to implement leverage...there are two jobs - one easy, one more tricky.
1. Calculate gains/loss at time of trade exit, multiplying effect of leverage.
2. Liquidation check.

1 is easy. Later, an 'interest charge' can be calculated. There's all sorts of things you could simulate, including letting players lend instead of leverage, but that is for later.
2 - I've been thinking on it awhile. You need a way for it to be accurate, but not resource intensive.  For example: If someone goes 10x long at $1000, if the price hits $900, even for one second, you should be liquidated.  It would be grossly inaccurate to only do an hourly check of price, for example.  But you don't want to have to check every price for liquidation, every price check.  Here's what I came up with:

Two single, game-wide values - liquidationLow, liquidationHigh. (These are cleared when exiting leveraged trades)
Every time a player makes a trade of newValue, two additional UPDATEs occur:
a) MAX(liquidationLow, newValue)
b) MIN(liquidationHigh, newValue)

I assume that no centralized job processing currently occurs.
This would need to occur with the same frequency as the price updates.
In the common case, CURRENT_PRICE will be neither below the liquidationLow, or above the liquidationHigh.
When it is, a SELECT can retrieve the players whose liquidationAmount is above/below the price update.
They can be liquidated appropriately, when-and-only-when a liquidation price occurs.

(Once you have a central source determining price, you could always, later, update the clients to just get AJAX updates from source rather than having each ping CoinDesk, but I once again digress :-)  )
Each player can store its liquidation value, and a select can retrieve those players above/below the liquidation value.

TL;DR - Two games - the existing long-term, plus a quarterly with either fixed leverage or the ability to choose. Secondary option, still only one game, but ability to choose leverage per-trade.  Gratuitous technical dreaming ensues.

Love the game, looking forward to continuing to play.

Actually checking for fl's on every price update would probably be fine and fairly easy. We would store liquidation points in the db and it is as simple as adding a new column. We already check for limit order executions on every price update, so it's as simple as call8ng a second function during that check. It could even return all three on one query. I'd have to look closer.

Sorry I haven't been around much. I am very busy running a business and work is piling up, so I apologize. I haven't forgotten about this or your (chainsaw) other ideas, I simply haven't been around.

And thanks to secousa for keeping things rolling and doing the whole pr thing when I can't be around.

 Second time I got majorly screwed by a bug which keeps you from being able to execute on market trade. Best guess is it occurs after having a limit order, clearing it... and then you are in a state where you cannot market trade, despite logging in and out.

 If I were guessing, there is a duplicate flag of some sort indicating whether a limit order exists and it fails to get cleared.

 No amount of logging in and out fixes it, you just can't trade. And then some hours pass and you can again.

That is very strange. I will take a look tonight if secousa doesn't have a fix first. The amount of hammering I have done on that button in testing, and I've never seen that.

PM sent. I was not able to duplicate the bug at this time, but have asked for more info.

I was gonna say "It's a fierce battle in the top 10" and then noticed 4 of them only hold.  :D
Same for us in the 11-16 posts. :)

yeah


there should be some sort of penalty for pure holders.



So i was trying to trade the sell off and buy the bounce, but my account says i am -100. not sure what happened.

im not sure whether my trade got executed


I also suggest we add altcoins in the mix, or is this against forum rules? I would like to trade a portfolio

will also help keep track of alts. just a suggestion

I would by far prefer more refined trading: Stop orders, and position sizing.

I think this is more about trading than about knowing which alt to pick.

Maybe restart the game after the summer with some improvements?

This is neat! I didn't know this app existed! I created a similar one, but it's going to be focusing more on stocks soon.

www.demoinvestor.com

Shit what did you do? This happened in testing before release, and we had it fixed (or so we thought) I will take a look soon and if there are no objections, I will roll back your single last trade. I would only do this in the case of a clear glitch. Something with ajax is what I suspect.
Can you give me more details? where you hitting the trade button quickly or did the price show something odd?


I do plan to restart. I wanted to get some more features on it first and thoroughly tested, then get an eventual tournament going. BTC prizes? We'll see.
I've just been so busy lately, I can barely see straight.

sure. stop orders make sense

right now you can place limit orders

some leveraged margin trading would be a great addition to. but keep it simple 3, 5, 10 X

but i still think adding *some* alts will make the game better

i guess i also have a bias b/c the game will motivate me to watch alts

thanks! i issue was sorted out

im back in the game

Watch BLOCK token Africoin if you really want to watch a real project ;)

Things should get really interesting, with all this volatility!

Looks like I have the same -100 bug. For a minute I saw a dozen other traders with -100 (including Afrikoin), now it's just me.  ???

Hey - I just rolled back your trade to your previous one. We're looking into this and trying to find the root cause of the issue, bear with us please. For now you can continue with the trade you were trying to perform

At the time it showed anyone with a btc balance as -100% p/l because the coindesk api was reporting a price of 0.00. I am going to look into devising our own index price internally so that this problem goes away permanently. We will continue with a testing period before we do a reset of the scoreboard. I want this to be perfect, and I want people to remain interested in the game, so I want these kinds of things fixed. Priority one is getting the issues fixed, then roll out new features that are at least independent of this particular issue.

edit:
if you see the price at 0.00, DO NOT MAKE A TRADE. It WILL result in a complete loss. Wait a minute, and refresh and all should be back to normal.

I just pushed a patch to hold us over until that's done. I hope that this solves the problem short term. Basically, its a check to see if a price of 0.00 was returned by coindesk, and if so, don't update the price. It's not the best solution (since price could have changed during that time, but coindesk didn't return the right data back) but it should prevent these nasty -100 bugs.

If anyone encounters this issue after this post, please let us know via here or PM (PM gets a bit faster reply, in case we're not actively on the forum)

hi guys!

game is going well

was down to 13, but ive managed to claw back up to 3rd.

Kramerc, you are next!  ;D

lol! but  i have like 250 trades

anyway, ive noticed there is a lag between when the price moves on exchanges and when the index reflects a drop or rise

so for example, i use bitcoinwisdom charts, bitstamp. when i expect a drop on bitstamp, i wait for it to happen on bitstamp, then use the window lag to sell on the simulator.
i get to sell at the top (slight advantage) and then price falls some seconds/minute after bitstamp dropped.

same when price is going up.

Its not much of an advantage, just though i should share


i guess you already know the index is about 30$ above bitstamp prices. Im curious how the coindesk index is weighted. it is about $30/$35 higher than bitstamp.

a feature i would like is the option of margin trading with fee, just to add a twist.

also the option of multiple buy/sell limits

eg i want to sell at $2650 and buy back at $1900 before i bedtime. if i could set these 2, i could sell a top and catch a bottom at once.


Again, thank you team for the game! having fun making paper paper paper!

The index both, updates once every minute and combines all leading exchanges by some volume weighted algo, so at times, it doesn't even move when exchanges do. The lag is likely due to a higher weighted exchange lagging behind stamp at times. That is another reason to experiment with our own custom index in the future. Maybe even with a real-time price change.

Margin is on the todo list, as well as multiple orders. However,  the ability to set orders with not-yet-cleared funds is unique to crypto exchanges and even that isn't allowed anymore on any exchanges I use. I used to do it on gox back in the day. It is called "free riding" in stock market trading and is a giant no-no. That's not to say never, to some variant of oco that allows an order to be placed after a conditional order is executed. We'll have to see how to implement something like that.

Glad you enjoy it! :)

Gambling on a huge swing down below 2k. Wish me luck ;) If it pays off I take top spot :p

Pfft I bottled it and bought back in early, should have the courage of my convictions ;)

Am I the only one still playing? :D

Bah I am going to get smoked well the game still works and the rally may begin shortly
Anyone up for a round ha-ha the automated trading API is still working ^^
Also tssk I wish it imported my old game would be smoking it so hard XD

So, does anyone still play this?
Should we reset the scores for a new season?

The current (and most of the time) leader, BtcHolder, did some trading a couple of days ago. I think he deserves to be proclaimed winner.
What is interesting is that he was the only one who outperformed buy-and-hold, although by only ~15%.
This game has been going on for 34 months. If a new game season will start, and the market will turn bearish, I'll probably do OK.  ;)

@RyNinDaCleM: the game was unavailable for about a week, and the domain looked to be for sale.
Is it safe to use anymore? I mean, if you sold it, the buyer could have added some shady code...

It wasn't sold, its still operating on the original host (source: I've been hosting RyN's work). Looks like the registration lapsed for a short while.

Do you know micgoossens? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1067333

I believe that you should talk to him, and organize a trading competition through your site. 8)