ICBIT Derivatives Market (USD/BTC futures trading) - LIVE

[starik69]

Where is june BTCUSD?

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[picobit]

An important server side update was just deployed.
Most noticable improvement: Now multiple connections from the same user is possible, and notifications will be automatically routed to every connected client. So you can open S&P500-index futures in one browser tab, BTCUSD in another tab, and Exchange in the third tab, and all of that will work and autoupdate as expected.
You can run your trading bot software, and watch the orders it places in real time in the web browser.

Another noticeable improvement is for IE users. Sometimes, autoupdates did not work and user had to force page refresh to see updates to his orders list. Now, this is also fixed.

Great!  I really like this steady stream of small interface improvements! 

[picobit]

And .... drum roll .... no less than three new BTC/USD futures contracts have appeared in the trading interface.   Virtually no orders (yet)  

Edit: I cannot count to three

[ThePok]

and lower fees!!!!

[molecular]

how are we going to get for example BUM3 going? The trading range is 32.139 - 39.281.

Who in his right mind would place an ASK at 39.281?

[picobit]

If you think so, you could place a BID at 39.  Then tomorrows trading range will be centered around 39.  If you think 39 is too low, then you should be happy if the bid is taken.

[molecular]

If you think so, you could place a BID at 39.  Then tomorrows trading range will be centered around 39.  If you think 39 is too low, then you should be happy if the bid is taken.

That's true. Thanks for the hint.

[Stephen Gornick]

Who in his right mind would place an ASK at 39.281?

Anyone who wants to lock in the ability to sell a BTC at $39 today (but simply won't get the cash until September 15th).  That's who.

[runeks]

It still would be nice for there to be shown the history of daily clearing prices.  (And also the ability to access the charts and order book without first authenticating, incidentally.)

Indeed I heard many similar requests, however I want to make some tradeoff by making the frontpage way more informative and "live" than the currently existing one, however imposing some limitations (slower update rate, for example) not to overload the server with many unauthenticated and thus uncontrolled connections.

This is already in progress, so should be deployed relatively soon.

How far are you along this path?

I would also appreciate unauthorized access to the order book. You see, I'm considering creating a website that actively tracks backwardation in bitcoin. So in order to track that I need to know the asks for the futures contracts, and the bid on BTC on Mt. Gox. Mt. Gox already has public order books, so your site is the only missing piece of the puzzle.

[Fireball]

Maintenance break in trading services now. I will post here/tweet when things are done.

[Stephen Gornick]

Maintenance break in trading services now. I will post here/tweet when things are done.

Looks like someone with a short got liquidated on a BUH3 short position?

Showing bids getting filled all the way down to $34.2.   Dammmnn, so I guess it would have paid for me to have left a few lowball bids out there just in case this type of event happens, it appears.

[Fireball]

Maintenance break in trading services now. I will post here/tweet when things are done.

We had to close a few profitable positions due to non-paying customers (you can see that Open Interest reduced) at below-market prices.
However, as a bonus, those whose profitable positions were reduced, got part of their profit secured without any trading fees.

Trading is back to normal. Thanks for using ICBIT!

[Stephen Gornick]

We had to close a few profitable positions due to non-paying customers

I'm confused.  If it was a profitable position it would add variation margin and thus no payment would be required.   About the only thing that would explain a profitable position seeing forced margin selling would be if the margin requirements changed, which if true would be news to me.

[Fireball]

We had to close a few profitable positions due to non-paying customers

I'm confused.  If it was a profitable position it would add variation margin and thus no payment would be required.   About the only thing that would explain a profitable position seeing forced margin selling would be if the margin requirements changed, which if true would be news to me.

One person shorted too much, and did not add money in the account to upkeep the position, so account reached negative state. And there are no asks in the order book to cover the short position. So it falls into the "worst case": the system chooses counter parties (longs in the same futures contract in our case) with biggest unrealized profit by itself, and makes a forced trade (buy to cover) between these parties.

As a result, the person who was in debt ends up with 0 BTC in account (there were a few emails sent, and waiting time was a few days), and profitable traders positions were reduced (as if they sold them to realize the profit).

[zebedee]

We had to close a few profitable positions due to non-paying customers

I'm confused.  If it was a profitable position it would add variation margin and thus no payment would be required.   About the only thing that would explain a profitable position seeing forced margin selling would be if the margin requirements changed, which if true would be news to me.

Yeah explanation makes no sense.

And trading fees at this exchange are outrageous on H3 - over 1.7 points are charged just for a buy and sell, ie. 170 ticks! I wonder how many buyers buying at 41 realise they make no money selling below 42.7?

No wonder spreads are so wide. Fees should be in USD and converted to BTC at the price traded...


In real futures markets in-and-out typically costs one tick or less. Here fees are two orders of magnitude greater.

[zebedee]

We had to close a few profitable positions due to non-paying customers

I'm confused.  If it was a profitable position it would add variation margin and thus no payment would be required.   About the only thing that would explain a profitable position seeing forced margin selling would be if the margin requirements changed, which if true would be news to me.

One person shorted too much, and did not add money in the account to upkeep the position, so account reached negative state. And there are no asks in the order book to cover the short position. So it falls into the "worst case": the system chooses counter parties (longs in the same futures contract in our case) with biggest unrealized profit by itself, and makes a forced trade (buy to cover) between these parties.

As a result, the person who was in debt ends up with 0 BTC in account (there were a few emails sent, and waiting time was a few days), and profitable traders positions were reduced (as if they sold them to realize the profit).

where on your site are these things explained? There is very little detail or explanation of margining and close out procedures that I could find, and such information is fundamental for anyone deciding whether to trade.

Where is a history of traded volumes and prices? Those weak graphs don't count and lack detail and precision.

I don't even see 24 hour volume....

[Fireball]

where on your site are these things explained? There is very little detail or explanation of margining and close out procedures that I could find, and such information is fundamental for anyone deciding whether to trade.

It should take you just a few seconds to locate this information on the website: https://icbit.se/margincall

[zebedee]

where on your site are these things explained? There is very little detail or explanation of margining and close out procedures that I could find, and such information is fundamental for anyone deciding whether to trade.

It should take you just a few seconds to locate this information on the website: https://icbit.se/margincall

Thanks, for some reason I couldn't find it besides looking twice. Any comments on fees?

Are fees constant once a contract is introduced or do they rise approaching maturity? As they seem to reduce for later contracts. Why not denominate fees in USD to avert the ridiculous charges now on H3?

Even J3 fees - a new contract - are a full point for in-and-out.

[Fireball]

As many of you are already aware, we launched three new contracts:

• BTC/USD-4.13

- the short one, expiring in April, with fees lowered to 0.003 BTC per trade

• BTC/USD-6.13

- the medium one, expiring in June, with even lower fees: 0.002 BTC per trade

• BTC/USD-9.13

- the longest one, expiring in September, with the lowest fees: 0.001 BTC per trade, which is 5 times less than the currently trading BTC/USD-3.13 contract
[/list]

There are a couple more differences from the old contract which I would like to point out:
a. The fee in contract specification is not fixed, so it may be changed in future, if it becomes necessary.
b. There is a settlement fee for these 3 new contracts, which is the same as a trading fee. This fee exists on most futures exchanges and it's needed to stimulate liquidity on the market, which is good for the market.

I plan to implement some kind of a dashboard for better market overview, since there are so many contracts trading now

[Fireball]

Are fees constant once a contract is introduced or do they rise approaching maturity? As they seem to reduce for later contracts. Why not denominate fees in USD to avert the ridiculous charges now on H3?

The H3 one specification did not state that the fee could be changed, so we decided to add new contracts with amended specification and lower initial fees instead of changing existing contract specification (which would be rather bad).

Indeed, this situation will be closely monitored, and as a futures trader myself, I understand the concerns you expressed.

Speaking of which, we do have very low-fee contracts. For example GOLD and OIL futures, and of course the S&P500 futures: it's just great from that point of view. Even 1 tick trade could still be profitable, as fees won't eat the profit.