Bitcoin Forum

I realize this is kind of an odd question but...

I've been building out a zero-fee, Bitcoin-denominated commodities exchange which, thanks to the help of some people I've met on this forum, will probably be ready to launch early next year (see and test beta app at https://www.bitfutures.io). There's currently an extremely small volume of trades on the traditional futures but it's enough to help me debug and test the trade matching mechanism. It's coming along nicely.

A number of people have asked about the possibility of providing binary futures based on the outcome of sporting events. Unlike the traditional futures market (Gold, Crude Oil) where I can find a few people to make markets, I literally know no one in the sports gaming industry.

So my question is: How do I go about finding people willing to make markets on NFL games and other sporting events? My dilemma is that no traders will be attracted to the platform if I don't initially have some market makers making a "book" (bid/ask spread). But no market makers would be interested without a steady supply of traders willing to accept their bids/offers. I'm not sure how to crack this 'chicken and egg' problem.

In theory, standard market participants ("takers") should like the fact that there are no trading fees, and skilled sports book market makers ("makers") should appreciate being able to day trade that bid/ask spread without me sticking my nose in and competing with them or taking a cut. But unless I get all players gathered at the same time and they're willing to trade, I don't see a way to jump start the sports book. Ideas?

[edit] I understand that decentralized exchanges based on ETH and 'smart contracts' are the future but in the meantime I'm just plugging away at this for fun and as a hobby. C'mon and humor an old man who enjoys Bitcoin and coding :)

Best,

GB

gale.boetticher@bitfutures.io
BM-2cXAXMG5KGBxt1pJUFPAEJq5cuFdwi53Pi (BitMessage)

Two things off the top of my head

#1 Bitcoin is not anonymous
#2 Ethan Burnside (he had similar disclaimers about his trading site being a game)

1.You have to promote your website to the right people.
2.You have to build trust and positive reputation.
Is it so difficult to find your target audience on facebook and twitter and run facebook ads or twitter ads campaigns?If you don`t have advertising budget,a more direct marketing approach will do the work. 

I'll investigate this a bit more. I don't know too much about Facebook, although I'd be willing to invest some money into advertising. I ran across a site called BitMedia.io that'll let you post ads through their network and pay for them in Bitcoin. It's actually been pretty effective at driving some traffic to the site.