bustabit – The original crash game

[sunsilk]

Hey, just want to update you guys that a phishing site with your gambling site name(bustabit.cam) is still active and is visible above your original website when searching bustabit or bustabit.com through google. it might help remove the phishing site that has your name if you reported it for trademark infringement to google or the domain provider so the website could be taken down.

It is still existing. I hope that google will take them down as soon as they receive a report from an authorized bustabit representative.

The simplest remedy here are adblockers. If I search for Bustabit in the Brave browser, the scam page is not displayed at all, because they usually buy advertising slots and are therefore ranked at the top:

I've done it on Brave and you're right, it's not appearing. But for the other browsers, it shows.

[RHavar]

Several people including Ryan suggested incorporating the price of Bitcoin in the calculation back in November, but I wanted to keep things simple and decided on a Bitcoin target instead. Unfortunately the price of Bitcoin had more than doubled less than a month later. With the commission rate now accounting for Bitcoin's price further changes should at most be necessary every few years.

One issue I have with the complexity, is that it's pretty annoying to do the calculations. Like I'm not sure exactly where to even get XDR information (admittedly, I've only heard of it just now). I see on XE: https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=XDR&To=XBT

1XDR = 0.0000402910 bitcoin


Which means you're effectively targeting a cap of ~2216 BTC (at current value) bankroll, which effectively gets phased in over a year.  I don't really know how to see what the "360-day moving average of BTCXDR" is, so it's hard to see what the commission will start off as.


I think it's important to make that information easily available via:
bustabit.com/investing-stats.txt

Which updates every day with something like:


date | current_commission_% | bankroll_in_btc | bankroll_profit_in_btc | BTCXDR |  BTCXDR_MOVING_AVERAGE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Otherwise, honestly it's a real PITA to figure out what's going on.


---

Regarding mandatory email (2fa). It's a shame you had to do that, but with all the bustabit phishing sites I guess there was no real alternative. I kind of wonder if it's be possible when registering to opt-out by signing some sort of disclaimer about the risks of phishing [etc]. Or since you already support totp 2fa, you can bypass mandatory email if you enable totp 2fa. While totp doesn't protect against phishing really, no one is going to both trying to phish the 1% of users who use totp 2fa -- and it'd allow the people who don't want to link their email to gambling account a nice solution

[chazley]

Pretty disappointing to see the investing rules change so drastically after they were just altered a couple months ago. If it's too complicated for RHavar to wrap his head around, I'm not even going to try. I have no clue what the new rules are, other than it's now tied to fiat value and commission rates will go down significantly, which to me seems pretty silly. The fact is, the bankroll size has been decreasing steadily since devans changed the bankroll rules a couple months ago, from ~4900 bitcoin to ~4200 now, so if the goal is to reduce the bankroll size the previous rules seemed to be working just fine. The only way it's "increased" is in fiat size, which I don't understand why it would even be relevant. It seems to only come into play when the price is *increasing*, and we don't hear a word about it when it's staying even or decreasing.

The facts are, # of bets daily is down drastically past few months and because the bankroll has been steadily going down, devans commission % has dropped to around 42% of a much smaller pie. He has every right to squeeze investors, but I wish we could just be more upfront about what's actually going on here. The past bankroll rules changes negatively impacted devans' bottom line and this is being done to recoup lost money. I wish we could just have a set % taken as commission without making this as complicated as humanly possible. Change it monthly if you'd like.

devans has every right to change the bankroll/investor rules however he likes, as frequently as he likes. Just giving my 2 cents.

[RHavar]

The fact is, the bankroll size has been decreasing steadily since devans changed the bankroll rules a couple months ago, from ~4900 bitcoin to ~4200 now, so if the goal is to reduce the bankroll size the previous rules seemed to be working just fine.

I suspect the reason the bankroll has been decreasing is just related to the value of bitcoin has been going up. Daniels last rule change has (accidentally?) strictly benefited investors, so I doubt there's been much divestment because of it

The only way it's "increased" is in fiat size, which I don't understand why it would even be relevant.

Well the bread-and-butter of the casino are people who put a chunk of their paycheck into the casino each month. So if you plot "amount wagered" in BTC and USD, you'll find it's far stabler in USD. So from that point of view, it makes much more sense targeting a fiat amount.

I think the (strong?) counter-argument to that would be that the (large) bankroll isn't needed to service the typical customer -- it's there to service whales. I strongly suspect the average bustabit whale *isn't* buying BTC to gamble, but already has acquired the bitcoin (probably a long time ago). So from that sense, it makes sense to target a BTC amount? (Or at least a moving average with an extremely long tail)

I wish we could just have a set % taken as commission without making this as complicated as humanly possible. Change it monthly if you'd like.

Yeah, I hope before the change happens we have much clearer information and examples. Also a page that just clearly says what the current commission is, and what it has been every day of the past.

Just-Dice has a pretty nice thing:
https://just-dice.com/misc/wagered.txt

It would be good to have something like that, extended with all the commission information

[Timetwister]

The intention behind the dynamic commission rate introduced just a few months ago was to reduce the size of the bankroll to a more reasonable one and to find an appropriate commission rate. Today, however, the bankroll is larger than ever. The change clearly isn't fulfilling its purpose, so I am adjusting the formula. At the bankroll's current size of nearly $150m this represents a significant increase in the commission rate, which I hope will move investors to realize some of their profits and divest from the bankroll.

Starting on March 2 the commission rate will be calculated like this:

Code:

bankroll * (360-day moving average of BTCXDR) / 55,000,000 XDR

Please see https://www.bustabit.com/help/investing for details on when and how the exchange rates are updated and how the commission rate is calculated.

Even though bustabit exclusively uses Bitcoin, the wager volume it sees is stabler in terms of purchasing power. Special drawing rights (XDR) are a currency basket defined by the IMF that consists of USD, EUR, CNY, JPY and GBP. Pegging the commission rate to special drawing rights encourages a reasonable bankroll size regardless of Bitcoin's price without being reliant on any single country's currency.

Despite the huge bets bustabit sometimes sees, more than 99% of its wager volume (!) could be served with a bankroll of "only" $40m. For bustadice, where unlike on bustabit the result of players' bets are not correlated, the number is smaller still. To give a concrete number, I would be happy to see the bankroll decrease by two thirds to about $50m in value. This is what the factor of 55,000,000 XDR targets.

Finally, using the moving average of the exchange rate compensates for the short-term volatility of Bitcoin's price and makes commission rates more predictable.

I owe an apology to bankroll investors for adjusting the formula again so soon. Several people including Ryan suggested incorporating the price of Bitcoin in the calculation back in November, but I wanted to keep things simple and decided on a Bitcoin target instead. Unfortunately the price of Bitcoin had more than doubled less than a month later. With the commission rate now accounting for Bitcoin's price further changes should at most be necessary every few years.

And what is the current "360-day moving average of BTCXDR"? You should post that somewhere on the Bustabit website so we can at least estimate what's the fee, I have no idea of what that value is (I didn't even hear about XDR before, at least you could have pegged it to USD, it's not like USD itself is super volatile that you need to use a strange formula with percentages of different fiat currencies).

From what I see, 55 000 000 XDR is just 2160 BTC now. So is the fee going to be 100% at 2160 BTC bankroll (assuming the 360 days average gets there)? This is crazy, from 10 000 to 2160 (and it would keep dropping if BTC rises, which is expected).

This is very disappointing. It isn't just clearly much worse but it's much harder to calculate what's the expected return.

[RHavar]

And what is the current "360-day moving average of BTCXDR"?

I think around 9381  ? (I tried to guess the 360 day moving average of BTCUSD and divided by 1.4 which i got by ballparking ). I might be wrong

So if the commission started today, it should be about: 4252.4 * 9381 / 55,000,000  = 0.725%  ... which is quite the leap.  If my calculation is correct, I don't see how I could not be divesting most (?) of my investment. But I guess that's the goal of the change to push some investors out.  I think the formula could be tweaked a little so that we don't see such an abrupt change on day 1 though?  Like using a longer moving average, or higher cap ?

[Timetwister]

And what is the current "360-day moving average of BTCXDR"?

I think around 9381  ? (I tried to guess the 360 day moving average of BTCUSD and divided by 1.4 which i got by ballparking ). I might be wrong

So if the commission started today, it should be about: 4252.4 * 9381 / 55,000,000  = 0.725%  ... which is quite the leap.  If my calculation is correct, I don't see how I could not be divesting most (?) of my investment. But I guess that's the goal of the change to push some investors out.  I think the formula could be tweaked a little so that we don't see such an abrupt change on day 1 though?  Like using a longer moving average, or higher cap ?

We would need that 360 days average somewhere in the website.

Yes, basically this is forcing the bankroll to go back to something like 1000 BTC... I bet lots of investors won't even notice these changes and just leave their investment there, even if they may be paying a 100% fee. I wonder what percentage of the bankroll is composed of that kind of investors.

Even if gamblers are rarely targetting the max profit, seeing a much smaller one may make people less willing to gamble, as the max profit may be a factor in their strategies.

I would propose Devans to:

1. Use a formula just based on USD. If wagered is really stable in USD terms, this seems reasonable. And USD is stable enough that there shouldn't be any need to use that strange basket. The website should still show that 360 days average somewhere and explain which exchange is it taking into account for the calculations.

2. Don't drop the "target maximum bankroll" so much at once. Try dropping it gradually and see how players react. If wagered/day stays stable, you could consider lowering that target bankroll size. Dropping it by so much may have unwanted consequences for players and is very confusing and negative for current investors and makes them have less confidence in the project, as you may choose to do some other drastic and negative changes in the future. This is even more relevant when divesting and investing has a cost (dilution fee).

[xxjumperxx]

Ufff, that change to Bankroll will def. make people divest...
Whats the point of it though?
Does devans make more profit if the Bankroll is smaller?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Managing thousands of bitcoins is a serious liability; not an asset, especially as the price of bitcoin goes up.

[micky123]

I bet lots of investors won't even notice these changes and just leave their investment there, even if they may be paying a 100% fee. I wonder what percentage of the bankroll is composed of that kind of investors.

I fall in this bracket you mention. The way i understand it (and i maybe wrong), is that bustabit is pegging the currency to XDR which is apparently a bunch of FIAT currencies rolled into one!?

So will i get paid in XDR, or will that XDR be converted to the prevailing BTC rate at the time of dilution, and i get the corresponding BTC amount?

Sorry but i am quite confused with this change. I will let it ride for now and see how it pans out over a month or two.

[devans]

One issue I have with the complexity, is that it's pretty annoying to do the calculations. Like I'm not sure exactly where to even get XDR information (admittedly, I've only heard of it just now). I see on XE: https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=XDR&To=XBT

1XDR = 0.0000402910 bitcoin


Which means you're effectively targeting a cap of ~2216 BTC (at current value) bankroll, which effectively gets phased in over a year.  I don't really know how to see what the "360-day moving average of BTCXDR" is, so it's hard to see what the commission will start off as.

Since you can't actually buy or sell XDR no exchange provides XDRUSD rates directly, but it's equivalent to BTCUSD/XDRUSD, for example. This chart shows the price of Bitcoin in XDR, with the blue line you see at the bottom being the 360-day moving average:



Currently the 360-day average is approximately 9,600 XDR, so if the change came into effect today the commission rate would be:

Code:

4,251 BTC * 9,600 XDR/BTC / 55,000,000 XDR = 40,809,600 / 55,000,000 XDR = 74.2%

I think it's important to make that information easily available via:
bustabit.com/investing-stats.txt

Which updates every day with something like:


date | current_commission_% | bankroll_in_btc | bankroll_profit_in_btc | BTCXDR |  BTCXDR_MOVING_AVERAGE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Agreed. I'll also show the current commission rate on the bankroll overview page.

[StackGambler]

Ufff, that change to Bankroll will def. make people divest...
Whats the point of it though?
Does devans make more profit if the Bankroll is smaller?

At the moment, all of the biggest bets are easily accomodated by a much smaller bankroll. This means whatever part of the bankroll isn't being utilized ($60M or so) is a pointless liability. This is why he's incentivizing people to divest, so that the bankroll reaches a more reasonable size - that is, one that is big enough to accomodate massive bets, but doesn't have a huge needless liability attached to securing it.

[devans]

We would need that 360 days average somewhere in the website.

Yes, basically this is forcing the bankroll to go back to something like 1000 BTC... I bet lots of investors won't even notice these changes and just leave their investment there, even if they may be paying a 100% fee. I wonder what percentage of the bankroll is composed of that kind of investors.

Even if gamblers are rarely targetting the max profit, seeing a much smaller one may make people less willing to gamble, as the max profit may be a factor in their strategies.

The last time the terms were updated I had planned to attempt to contact all investors that hadn't seen the announcement yet, but when I checked every investor without exception had visited the site at least once from the time of the announcement on the website to the changes coming into effect. If that's any indication bankroll investors tend to keep tabs on their bankroll stake fairly well.

I would propose Devans to:

1. Use a formula just based on USD. If wagered is really stable in USD terms, this seems reasonable. And USD is stable enough that there shouldn't be any need to use that strange basket. The website should still show that 360 days average somewhere and explain which exchange is it taking into account for the calculations.

The US dollar isn't relevant to most of our players. And while it is perceived as largely stable, I'd rather err on the side of caution and ensure the formula stays relevant regardless of any individual currency we choose as a proxy. I am confident that this way the commission structure will at most require tweaking every few years.

I agree with you on making the effects on the commission rate more obvious and showing more data. bustabit will soon start showing the current commission rate on the web site as well as provide historical data for the exchange rates we use, the bankroll size and the wager volume.

2. Don't drop the "target maximum bankroll" so much at once. Try dropping it gradually and see how players react. If wagered/day stays stable, you could consider lowering that target bankroll size. Dropping it by so much may have unwanted consequences for players and is very confusing and negative for current investors and makes them have less confidence in the project, as you may choose to do some other drastic and negative changes in the future. This is even more relevant when divesting and investing has a cost (dilution fee).

Consider that the size of the bets bustabit needs to service are stable in purchasing power rather than in Bitcoin and that targeting a bankroll size in Bitcoin doesn't really make sense for that reason. From bustabit's perspective the target size for the bankroll hasn't decreased at all–if anything it has slightly increased over the past few years. What has changed is that the bankroll went from being worth a reasonable-ish $67m half a year ago to an insane and frankly unnecessary $155m today.

The bankroll was less than half of what it is now for most of bustabit's history–even since v2 launched–so fear that players will be unable to bet like they are used to isn't warranted in my opinion. For the majority of players it doesn't matter whether they can win the equivalent of $1,500,000 or "only" $500,000 in a single round.

[devans]

I fall in this bracket you mention. The way i understand it (and i maybe wrong), is that bustabit is pegging the currency to XDR which is apparently a bunch of FIAT currencies rolled into one!?

So will i get paid in XDR, or will that XDR be converted to the prevailing BTC rate at the time of dilution, and i get the corresponding BTC amount?

Sorry but i am quite confused with this change. I will let it ride for now and see how it pans out over a month or two.

The only thing that is changing is how the commission that bankroll investors pay to bustabit is calculated. At the moment the commission rate changes based on the bankroll's size in Bitcoin. In March the commission rate will change based on the bankroll's size in XDR (a basket of fiat currencies) instead. The bankroll and its profits/losses will continue to be held in Bitcoin and won't be converted to any other currencies.

[Timetwister]

In that "stats" page you could also have wagered amount per day in XDR, as Just Dice does.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Speaking as a small BaB investor here.

Devans, could you please cap the commission to a max of ~95%?

It wouldn’t be good if investing in the bankroll ever turned into a -EV proposition. I don’t think that’s what any investor signed up for, and the reality of the 2% nonrefundable investment fee means that new investors, and re-investors, must make long term considerations when they invest.

Furthermore, while I do have strong trust in you, a commission structure like this technically isn’t “provably fair” in in spirit, as the commission is paid to _you_, and nothing stops _you_ from investing. So let’s say it gets to a point where you own 55M XDR of Bitcoin. You could deposit it, force the commission rate to be >100%, and make _every other investor have negative EV_.

I think capping the max commission to 95% will achieve what you want, but also provide certainty to investors that they will always still be investors and won’t face the possibility of entering into a -EV trade.

[fullhdpixel]

The intention behind the dynamic commission rate introduced just a few months ago was to reduce the size of the bankroll to a more reasonable one and to find an appropriate commission rate. Today, however, the bankroll is larger than ever. The change clearly isn't fulfilling its purpose, so I am adjusting the formula. At the bankroll's current size of nearly $150m this represents a significant increase in the commission rate, which I hope will move investors to realize some of their profits and divest from the bankroll.

Honestly I have never seen someone be tired of getting too much investment before, this is both a blessing and a curse I assume. Sure, it is really bad that we have 150+ million dollars worth of bankroll when all we need is 50 million, that would put it into a place where earners would earn more from the same bet, all 150+ million dollar investors take the share of a guy who lost 10 bucks, it would all be covered in 50 million and less people would get more money so I get it.

However you have to also see the fact that you could have been a website that rarely gets investors and you might have to end up filling the bankroll yourself just so you could cover gamblers who are rare and barely anyone gamböles, basically your website could have been something nobody liked and only under 10 people came in and gambled very little and left type of place, instead your "problem" is that too many people invests into it and I think that is a great problem to have.

[StackGambler]

Thank you bustabit, for being the only consistent casino that doesn't constantly try to fuck people over in some way. Even Stake has reached some pretty shit levels. Daniel is always a class act. I will forever recommend this god damn site no matter how much money I've lost on it.

[malevolent]

Ufff, that change to Bankroll will def. make people divest...
Whats the point of it though?
Does devans make more profit if the Bankroll is smaller?

All the increases in commissions were clearly aimed at lowering the bankroll size to minimize liability, not to maximize profit.

Since the rise in price has been rapid, not enough time may have passed to be able to tell how investors will react; especially long-term ones since the divesting fees will always discourage short-term ones. I think it would have made sense to wait >6 months before making another change to commissions.

[micky123]

I fall in this bracket you mention. The way i understand it (and i maybe wrong), is that bustabit is pegging the currency to XDR which is apparently a bunch of FIAT currencies rolled into one!?

So will i get paid in XDR, or will that XDR be converted to the prevailing BTC rate at the time of dilution, and i get the corresponding BTC amount?

Sorry but i am quite confused with this change. I will let it ride for now and see how it pans out over a month or two.

The only thing that is changing is how the commission that bankroll investors pay to bustabit is calculated. At the moment the commission rate changes based on the bankroll's size in Bitcoin. In March the commission rate will change based on the bankroll's size in XDR (a basket of fiat currencies) instead. The bankroll and its profits/losses will continue to be held in Bitcoin and won't be converted to any other currencies.

Gotcha, thanks for clearing that up. I will continue to hold my small investment in bustabit. Thanks for responding.