[ANN] Bitcoin à la Future - open-sourced 2013-05-26

[mav]

No longer active

https://bitcoinalafuture.com/

https://github.com/thedawnrider/bitcoinalafuture


Bitcoin à la Future

A place to speculate on the future price of bitcoin.

Summary

Users fill in a statement declaring whether they think the price of bitcoin will be above or below a certain value at a certain point in the future. The user submits their prediction and backs it with the amount of bitcoin they would like to win if the prediction is right. Others may disagree with this statement and make their own prediction against it, and also submit the amount of bitcoin they would like to win if they are right.

When the prediction can be evaluated, the winners receive their initial deposits back. The losers deposits are given to the winners. Winners can win up to the value of their original deposit, minus ten percent for fees. The distribution is on a first come first served basis. Any leftover losing amounts after all the winnings are issued will be returned to their respective losers.

Predictions remain open for activity until two hours before the prediction is due for evaluation. After this time, any deposits received will be returned and not evaluated as a winner or loser.

Uses

Hedging

If a person wishes to be more certain about the value of their bitcoin, they can hedge against a rise or a fall. For example, to hedge against the price going down, a user may predict that the price will be less than a certain value in the future. If it is less than that value, their winnings help keep their overall bitcoin value consistent, and if the amount is more than the predicted value, they lose some coins but the higher exchange rate means their overall bitcoin value remains consistent.

Speculating

If a person would like to obtain more bitcoin, they can predict the price movement and hope that they win. If they do win they receive more bitcoin and increase their overall bitcoin value, and the risk has paid off. If they lose, they have less overall bitcoins and the risk has caused them a loss.

Gambling / Entertainment

See Speculating

Price Discovery

The data is all publicly available and can be used to create an idea of market sentiment.

Future Development

Future development will look to include:
- a chart with interpretation of the data
- documentation for the api
- a websocket to announce new predictions
- the option to replace someone else's return address with your own for a cost (ie buy and sell contracts)

Please let me know if there are any specific features that are desirable or if any of the above future developments are particularly undesirable.

Trust

How can you trust this site? The entire history of the site is available, you can confirm exactly what has happened in the past. Deposit a small amount and confirm that it works how you expect. Never risk more than you can afford to lose. If you still don't trust it, simply don't use it.

Translators

The site has been translated using an automated tool, if you want to provide human translations please let me know and we'll arrange something.

[Fireball]

Hedging and everything else finance related except gambling is usually done via trading futures contracts on the BTC/USD rate.

[mav]

API documentation is now available

https://www.bitcoinalafuture.com/api/

Another tip:

 you can post your prediction (or the opposing prediction) easily by clicking the + button next to a prediction in the table on the homepage.

It will look something like this https://www.bitcoinalafuture.com/#price=13&lt=1&time=1347580800000

The link will take you to the homepage with pre-populated fields on the page so you need to do is enter the return address.

[crispy]

Looks interesting, but I don't see any activity there (yet!).

Curious though, it appears you have to get a counterparty to your exact prediction to have a "wager". Right?

[knight22]

Is this trustable?

[fbastage]

Is this trustable?

not until proven, imo.  burden of proof on the site to demonstrate worth and worthiness to me.

also:  POST https://bitcoinalafuture.com/make_new_prediction/ 500 (INTERNAL SERVER ERROR)

[mav]

Sorry for neglecting this for so long. The site is going to be shut down due to lack of interest.

The site has served the purpose of me learning a few things about hosting a bitcoin related site, so rather than maintain a non-used site I will shut it down.

Anyone interested in the code, I will be open-sourcing it after the site is shut down.

[mav]

Code is at https://github.com/thedawnrider/bitcoinalafuture for anyone interested.

This site was stable and secure when set up correctly.

It never gained traction because it was
- not marketed at all
- had crap css style
- has questionable value to users

The problem with it is
- what incentive is there to make a prediction, rather than oppose someone else? Needs a way for creating information to be more valuable than consuming it.
- big players who can manipulate the market are better able to use this to strengthen their position, facilitating a concentration of wealth (my biggest issue personally with the idea).
- there are a lot more interesting things to do in the bitcoin economy than predicting the future price.
- the site needs some casino-style flashing lights to add to the entertainment value (which I consider to be the primary value).
- it has no charting (which would make the site potentially a useful sentiment indicator).
- it requires human input to move coins out to winners (something to bear in mind is this platform currently requires daily attention by the operator).