MPOE/MPEx has a monster month

[MPOE-PR]

Highlights: ~10k MPOE (6k interest, 4k dividends), ~1k MPEx (huge sign-ups). 9.99% MPBOR. Almost 200k total contracts traded. Third party ownership for the first time over 10%. My salary revealed. Etc.

Full story.

[1714027947]

1714027947

[1714027947]

1714027947

[MPOE-PR]

Another monster month in the making, or straight from the wolf's mouth:

Mar 06 06:03:55 <mircea_popescu>   fun fact of the day : mpoe option book notional exposure passes 3mn usd.
Mar 06 06:04:31 <mircea_popescu>   this is more than the combined total of all venture capital taken in by all bitcoin ventures iirc.

[poly]

Meanwhile, S.DICE is back at their IPO price. Investors didn't really lose any money in USD terms however.

[EskimoBob]

Another monster month in the making, or straight from the wolf's mouth:

Mar 06 06:03:55 <mircea_popescu>   fun fact of the day : mpoe option book notional exposure passes 3mn usd.
Mar 06 06:04:31 <mircea_popescu>   this is more than the combined total of all venture capital taken in by all bitcoin ventures iirc.

What a load of ego stroking. Most people here have no idea how empty this number actually is. MP abuses this as hard as he can. Did not expect anything else from you 2.

Let me copy paste another fun fact for you, before your bloated head and ego explodes:

 'Notional Value'
The total value of a leveraged position's assets. This term is commonly used in the options, futures and currency markets because a very small amount of invested money can control a large position (and have a large consequence for the trader).

For example, one S&P 500 Index futures contract obligates the buyer to 250 units of the S&P 500 Index. If the index is trading at $1,000, then the single futures contract is similar to investing $250,000 (250 x $1,000). Therefore, $250,000 is the notional value underlying the futures contract.

So, it only takes a tiny fraction to show HUGE notional value and feed that crap to you all as some kind of big news.

[sunnankar]

Meanwhile, S.DICE is back at their IPO price. Investors didn't really lose any money in USD terms however.

That is not accurate. IPO prices were .0037 and below. At the highest USD exchange rate of about $12. So, IPO prices were around $0.0444 per share.

Current prices are .0048 at around $47 or about $0.2256 per share.

So I am not sure how you are pricing the shares to get the IPO price as neither the BTC nor USD price is anywhere close to the IPO price.

[MPOE-PR]

'Notional Value'
The total value of a leveraged position's assets. This term is commonly used in the options, futures and currency markets because a very small amount of invested money can control a large position (and have a large consequence for the trader).

A cursory look at the books will show you that options trade for upwards of 5 cents to the Bitcoin. In point of fact the cost of this ~75k BTC exposure has been in the 10-20k range. That's not "very small", it's quite reasonable.

The fact of the matter is that the future of roughly 75k BTCs is controlled by MPOE issued options, which turn it as you may is more than the monthly trade of plenty of exchanges.

[EskimoBob]

you keep dazzling us with all sorts of numbers. Is there a real time and aggregated data available from a third party to verify any of that?
Those few lonely trades assbot prints out in IRC, do not tell that "amazing turnover blaa blaa blaa" story at all.

[MPOE-PR]

you keep dazzling us with all sorts of numbers. Is there a real time and aggregated data available from a third party to verify any of that?
Those few lonely trades assbot prints out in IRC, do not tell that "amazing turnover blaa blaa blaa" story at all.

Since you're probably too retarded to read the actual FAQ, probably the best option for your limited abilities would be twitter.

It also nicely displays the trading continuity during the "downtime".

[superbit]

Why is your site redirecting to the whitehouse?  I thought it was secure?

[kakobrekla]

Why is your site redirecting to the whitehouse?  I thought it was secure?

Whitehouse was hacked.

[BitcoinMint.US]

Shouldn't this belong in the MPOE or MPEx thread?  They don't warrant multiple threads for their news.  Pretty sure that 95% of the people on this forum could give a shit about MPEx outside of S.DICE.

[maximian]

Why is your site redirecting to the whitehouse?  I thought it was secure?

The main MPEx frontend, http://mpex.com is undergoing a DDoS attack, saturating the traffic uplink and causing  the site to be unavailable. The MPEx is unaffected and is still processing trades. You can get to it through a number of web proxies, including this one: http://mpex.coinbr.com.

Mircea Popescu just redirected traffic to whitehouse.gov as a gag (and it might actually give the attackers pause), since it'll be a while before he can solve the DDoS problem.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Like what I said in another thread, it's like someone ddosing NYSE's website and saying they hacked the exchange.

[poly]

Meanwhile, S.DICE is back at their IPO price. Investors didn't really lose any money in USD terms however.

That is not accurate. IPO prices were .0037 and below. At the highest USD exchange rate of about $12. So, IPO prices were around $0.0444 per share.

Current prices are .0048 at around $47 or about $0.2256 per share.

So I am not sure how you are pricing the shares to get the IPO price as neither the BTC nor USD price is anywhere close to the IPO price.

It was at 0.0035 when I posted that message. Still a gain in USD terms, but not BTC at that time.

[MPOE-PR]

Because IRC is a fleeting medium, here's a collection of quotes for the record:

Mar 07 20:08:52 <mircea_popescu>   but to sum up the situation, cause i imagine many people are curious :
Mar 07 20:09:24 <mircea_popescu>   mpex consists of a trade server and webservers which the users talk to.
Mar 07 20:09:39 <mircea_popescu>   if you look at it practically these webservers are proxies.
Mar 07 20:09:57 <mircea_popescu>   there's five of them sharing two gigabit uplinks through a balancer.
Mar 07 20:10:31 <mircea_popescu>   the first time mpex was ddosed in january the attack took out the actual datacenter top level router.
Mar 07 20:10:47 <mircea_popescu>   there were two more layers of routing to get to the router that handled the webservers.
Mar 07 20:11:10 <mircea_popescu>   now, the reason admittedly was that the thing was a little old and kidna loaded. but still.
Mar 07 20:11:35 <mircea_popescu>   so at that time i split the tubes up north/east, and started a bunch of proxies
Mar 07 20:11:46 <mircea_popescu>   jurov was hosting one, for instance.
Mar 07 20:12:12 <mircea_popescu>   since the attack started yesterday a total of 100+ of these were taken offline.
Mar 07 20:12:26 <mircea_popescu>   granted, it's not hard to blow up a small shared setup like that.
Mar 07 20:12:45 <mircea_popescu>   but somebody did have the determination to spend a day and a half looking for them, setting up the ddosing for them individually bla bla.
Mar 07 20:13:21 <mircea_popescu>   the thing with that system is that it works by division. if there's 100 of them there jurov can stay online.
Mar 07 20:13:31 <mircea_popescu>   if there's 9 left the remainder ddos is available to hit him
Mar 07 20:13:50 <mircea_popescu>   i could allow anyone to start a proxy right now, the trade server is fine, etc. the problem is
Mar 07 20:14:02 <mircea_popescu>   you'd be nuked in half an hour or something, and it's just hassle.
Mar 07 20:14:29 <imsaguy>   mmm, shake n bake
Mar 07 20:14:32 <mircea_popescu>   right.
Mar 07 20:14:43 <mircea_popescu>   now, a humongo 10gb dedicated solution is being set up as we speak
Mar 07 20:14:56 <mircea_popescu>   i had this sort-of prepared, but not actually provisioned and ready because the shit is expensive
Mar 07 20:15:19 <imsaguy>   so you're having more babies to win the war?
Mar 07 20:15:23 <mircea_popescu>   basically.
Mar 07 20:15:40 <Diablo-D3>   heh
Mar 07 20:15:44 <mircea_popescu>   imsaguy the alternative is handle mpex trades by email.
Mar 07 20:15:56 <Diablo-D3>   email, the original next generation mail queue
Mar 07 20:16:00 <mircea_popescu>   yep.
Mar 07 20:16:02 <imsaguy>   how about mpex trades via telnet?

Mar 07 21:29:50 <deadweasel>   mircea_popescu: keep your friends close...  might want to sort out who/what this was
Mar 07 21:29:55 <deadweasel>   help protectin the future.
Mar 07 21:30:03 <mircea_popescu>   deadweasel nah, i literally do not care.
Mar 07 21:30:20 <mircea_popescu>   understand : this was planned for. sooner or later someone was going to attack mpex.
Mar 07 21:30:23 <deadweasel>   i can tell, fuckin' Rick James up in here
Mar 07 21:30:28 <mircea_popescu>   proving that mpex can't be effectually attacked is part of the game
Mar 07 21:30:28 <deadweasel>   I'm Rich Bitch!
Mar 07 21:30:34 <mircea_popescu>   the attackers are on our team here.
Mar 07 21:30:45 <jurov>   deadweasel, how would you do it? it can be half of btctalk
Mar 07 21:31:03 <jborkl>   Hell, anyone not expecting this attack at some point was not paying attention
Mar 07 21:31:19 <mircea_popescu>   jborkl the only dispute was, "will it be government or not"
Mar 07 21:31:24 <mircea_popescu>   turns out not. so... heh.
Mar 07 21:31:37 <deadweasel>   i don't know how to do it.
Mar 07 21:31:42 <deadweasel>   i probably wouldn't care either.
Mar 07 21:31:47 <mircea_popescu>   just the fact that traders could close > 50k btc worth of option positions normally while mpex was being ddosed to hell
Mar 07 21:31:51 <mircea_popescu>   already speaks volumes.
Mar 07 21:31:55 <jborkl>   yeah, a few months ago Bank of America got ddos for I think 3 days
Mar 07 21:32:01 <mircea_popescu>   that the bot later was w/o a feed cause mtgox went bananas is a diff story
Mar 07 21:32:10 <mircea_popescu>   but pain was avoided here.
Mar 07 21:32:14 <deadweasel>   it was interesting to watch people show up here, get a proxy addy, then go trade.
Mar 07 21:32:32 <deadweasel>   they were all jibberred up, then like, ok, i'm ok now.
Mar 07 21:32:38 <mircea_popescu>   cool, huh ?
Mar 07 21:32:54 <jborkl>   this was a really good test for MPEX
Mar 07 21:32:55 <deadweasel>   very
Mar 07 21:33:11 <deadweasel>   there are no problems, only opportunities
Mar 07 21:33:25 <mircea_popescu>   yeah, sure, i'm not keeping 10k worth of pipe as a hot and ready to go backup, i admit
Mar 07 21:33:32 <mircea_popescu>   on the other hand, i am getting it deployed, so.
Mar 07 21:33:42 <error4733>   mp, they ask something ?
Mar 07 21:34:00 <mircea_popescu>   not afaik.

Mar 07 23:10:49 <mircea_popescu>   mjr__ trade is practically frozen so nothing much would have changed.
Mar 07 23:10:54 <mjr__>   cool
Mar 07 23:11:11 <mircea_popescu>   that;s kinda it, i could have come up with a pure vpn solution
Mar 07 23:11:20 <mircea_popescu>   and only allow trusted people on the network to talk to the exchange
Mar 07 23:11:27 <mircea_popescu>   (which incidentally is how things work irl )
Mar 07 23:11:41 <mircea_popescu>   however, i judged that'd create a haves/havesnot disparity that's both huge and sudden
Mar 07 23:11:53 <mircea_popescu>   better and fairer just freeze things for a little bit.
Mar 07 23:14:12 <mjr__>   i agree
Mar 07 23:15:15 <mjr__>   i like the protected message open channel
Mar 07 23:15:21 <mircea_popescu>   but to expand on the plan : as an absolute rock bottom if things can't be otherwise resolved within a week, i will publish a gmail address, and trade will work via email (you email your paste instead of putting into site, you get gpg response emailed back)
Mar 07 23:15:55 <mjr__>   out of curiosity and i haven't really thought this all the way through
Mar 07 23:15:56 <mircea_popescu>   as a relative rock bottom, if things can't be otherwise resolved within a couple of days i will have a vpn installed. this has the disadvantage that it puts the brokers in an iffy spot
Mar 07 23:16:03 <assbot>   [HAVELOCK] [HIM] 2 @ 1.55 = 3.1 BTC

Mar 07 23:16:20 <mircea_popescu>   also, we are currently working on using irc bot much like gribble works. there should be one up soon and another during weekend.
Mar 07 23:16:32 <mjr__>   would a recaptcha and session timeout not solve most of it?
Mar 07 23:16:38 <mircea_popescu>   and also, much larger infrastructure should be coming online during the 8th.
Mar 07 23:16:43 <mircea_popescu>   mjr__ nope.
Mar 07 23:16:55 <mircea_popescu>   it would solve nothing at all. routers are getting fried, not boxes.
Mar 07 23:17:00 <mjr__>   oh ok
Mar 07 23:17:03 <mjr__>   true
Mar 07 23:17:32 <mjr__>   and i'm sure that they are randomizing the addresses enough to bypass any sort of blacklist rirght?
Mar 07 23:17:35 *   Diablo-D3 has quit (Quit: This computer has gone to sleep)
Mar 07 23:17:50 <mjr__>   and CDN couldn't fix either?
Mar 07 23:18:10 <mircea_popescu>   cdn doesn't do this. there are ddos protection services out there, but all have their own issues

To add to that: there was a lot of Call interest open earlier in the week, about 80-90k contracts in total. There was also short Put interest (which in effect is long BTC), to the tune of about 15k contracts (worth something like 25k BTC at the time because of the way long Puts work - these were Puts struck at 75 USD per). Most of it closed without problems during the DDOS. By the time price feeds were unavailable during the craziness yest (and so the MPOE bot was no longer quoting) we were not getting any more orders (this would be 10 or so hours before the last proxy went down and trade was halted). Nevertheless if you are holding significant options exposure that you want to unwind immediately please contact MP on #bitcoin-assets to arrange. Fwiw the bot is quoting right now, mostly to itself. 

MPEx should be back online and fully operational during the course of today (March 8th). If that proves impossible there are failover mechanisms in place to ensure people will be able to trade - and yes we will take it to email if need be.

MPEx is forever.

[guruvan]

Nice - just the info I was looking for (IRC is a PITA on this network here) Thanks for the collection of quotes.

good luck

[JordanL]

Glad to see that you guys were well prepared for this attack. I can't wait until trading starts again, hopefully this caused a little panic in under-informed investors, and the rest of us will be able to grab up some undervalued shares. Growing pains are going to happen, it's how the company responds that matters. I have ever confidence that Mpex is going to return stronger than ever. Thanks for keeping us updated, MPOE-PR.

The S.Dice passthrough on Bitfunder is currently selling really cheap... I was able to grab a few thousand at 30% below what the passthrough on BTC-TC is currently selling for.  

Hopefully Blockchain.info will fix their database problem soon, or I'll have to dip in to one of my cold wallets to get more coins into Mpex.  

[JordanL]

MPEx is back online.     

[MPOE-PR]

Today at 05:43:35 PM
[...]I can't wait until trading starts again[...]

Today at 06:07:08 PM
MPEx is back online.     

At least that didn't take long. 

Anyway, status update:

I. Better proxies are back online. Talk to mpex.coinbr.com for all your trading needs. These should be significantly more difficult to take offline than the last crop. While not impossible, we collectively welcome the opportunity to create a third generation so, mr attacker man, hit it.

II. MPEx main website (mpex.co) is not back online yet. One of the reasons is that we have a whole pile of hardware being assembled, much of it "nonstandard" and so there are delays. Specifically in this case some of the RAID 6 controllers - after being late to arrive - failed to pass our tests. When confronted the vendor explained that well...maybe they're "marginal". We're having stuff reshipped but apparently good quality controllers are rare. This is just "a taste of adventure", there are myriad other various issues I won't be delving into, mostly because nobody gave me the list. Otherwise I'd love to.

It would be technically possible to get mpex.co back online as it is, but MP made the call to first get absolutely everything assembled, working and tested and then bring the main site online. Since trade is going on normally as it is, this approach has on top of convenience an added benefit: I don't think a ddos-er has ever been this publicly humiliated before in the history of the Internet, nor do I think anyone has had so much fun fighting a ddos before.

MPEx is one with the interwebs. It doesn't even need a website.

III. Mpexbot available for trade via IRC. To quote:

<mircea_popescu> also, let me introduce everyone to mpexbot
<mircea_popescu> $help
<mpexbot> mircea_popescu: (help [<plugin>] [<command>]) -- This command gives a useful description of what <command> does. <plugin> is only necessary if the command is in more than one plugin.
<mircea_popescu> $vwap
<mpexbot> mircea_popescu: http://pastebin.com/QhtV1Hu5
<mircea_popescu> anyway : in case our proxies get taken down, you can use mpexbot to check the json for vwap prices and market depth.
<mircea_popescu> you can also issue orders through it, via $post blabla, where blabla is the url of a pastebin where you've uploaded your gpg encrypted clearsigned order
<mircea_popescu> this functionality is disabled currently for administrative reasons, but can be flipped on at will
<mircea_popescu> this ensures us against trade being taken down via ddos, unless someone manages to ddoss frenode.
<jurov> and trades by email are supported automatically?
<jurov> or you do the manually?
<mircea_popescu> trades by email was an absolute lowest level of desperation.
<mircea_popescu> we haven't reached it.
<jurov> ah okay
<mircea_popescu> it's just there as a possibility so people understand that no matter what happens, mpex will trade.
<mircea_popescu> but atm no need for such inconvenience.
<mircea_popescu> any questions ?
<smickles> $help post
<mpexbot> smickles: (post <paste key>) -- Supply a pastebin paste key containing a signed and encrypted MPEx command. Respondes with a pastebin URL with MPEx's response.
<smickles> $post bi232
<mpexbot> smickles: Temporarily disabled by reques of the romanian.

The bot has actually been available since yesterday, when it demonstrated a trade:

Mar 08 09:00:51 <mircea_popescu>   $post ew4aaH8L
Mar 08 09:00:54 <mpexbot>   mircea_popescu: Server's response: http://pastebin.com/gZhCDu2b
Mar 08 09:02:12 <mircea_popescu>   $depth
Mar 08 09:02:13 <mpexbot>   mircea_popescu: Server's response: http://pastebin.com/7iJS63TY
Mar 08 09:02:51 <mircea_popescu>   ok so! what you folks see here is a historical moment.
Mar 08 09:03:03 <mircea_popescu>   mpexbot is capable of proxing mpex trade server now.
Mar 08 09:03:03 <mpexbot>   mircea_popescu: Error: "is" is not a valid command.
Mar 08 09:03:16 <mircea_popescu>   cute.
Mar 08 09:06:25 <assbot>   [MPEX] [S.MPOE] 1337 @ 0.00075 = 1.0028 BTC

Mar 08 09:06:59 <mircea_popescu>   ok so, im closing the ordering now, because i don't want inconsistencies. this is all testnet stuff.
Mar 08 09:07:09 <mircea_popescu>   but the good news is here to stay. mpexbot.

This is important because it places an absolute limit on inconvenience, which is lower than the previous (trade by email). With the presence of irc bots we know as a proven fact that no matter what happens, as long as someone somewhere can run an irc server, MPEx will be taking orders.

Generally MPEx remains unwaveringly committed to its goals as summarized in the FAQ:

In case the domain is confiscated or otherwise lost MPEx will move to a different domain, in a different jurisdiction. Should the same happen again, MPEx would move to what will at the time be a solid alternative for a free Internet, be it the TOR network, namecoin or some equivalent DNS or any comparable solution. No government will ever be able to stop the Internet, in general. We're prepared to show this in the particular.

We welcome challenges of those goals with the secure knowledge that no challenge is anything but an opportunity to be seized.

[EskimoBob]

you keep dazzling us with all sorts of numbers. Is there a real time and aggregated data available from a third party to verify any of that?
Those few lonely trades assbot prints out in IRC, do not tell that "amazing turnover blaa blaa blaa" story at all.

Since you're probably too retarded to read the actual FAQ, probably the best option for your limited abilities would be twitter.

It also nicely displays the trading continuity during the "downtime".

Twitter?! LOL!
Level of your stupidity is astounding, pr-fluff. Thank you for the link to FAQ written by a moron and located on site that is still offline. Fkn brilliant PR work! Cheers!

II. MPEx main website (mpex.co) is not back online yet. One of the reasons is that...

Looks like way more people dislike that insignificant Romanian pervert than I ever imagined.
Up yours, mp!
LOL!