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

[Stephen Gornick]

I saw the order book it had qty 25 at $6.8535 or something to that effect, but when I placed a BUY market order quantity of 1 contract, the Your Orders history shows:

403   07/08 14:29   BUZ2   Buy   MKT   Filled    7.1578

Which is much higher than the $6.8535.  I was thinking that maybe the seller doesn't accept partial fills and thus my order was matched to the first where it could an ask with the quantity of mine or smaller.  But then I did a limit order, quantity 1 at the price shown for the lowest ask, and that filled at the price I specified -- so a partial fill restriction doesn't appear to be occurring.

Was this trade executed properly?

[1714241079]

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[1714241079]

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[1714241079]

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[Fireball]

I saw the order book it had qty 25 at $6.8535 or something to that effect, but when I placed a BUY market order quantity of 1 contract, the Your Orders history shows:

403   07/08 14:29   BUZ2   Buy   MKT   Filled    7.1578

Which is much higher than the $6.8535.  I was thinking that maybe the seller doesn't accept partial fills and thus my order was matched to the first where it could an ask with the quantity of mine or smaller.  But then I did a limit order, quantity 1 at the price shown for the lowest ask, and that filled at the price I specified -- so a partial fill restriction doesn't appear to be occurring.

Was this trade executed properly?

There is no partial fill limitation. The solution is very simple. This is a market order, which means, you agree to buy quantity of contracts at the best possible price for you which exists in the market. It means that the price is limited only by the trade range for the current session, whose highest value is $7.1578 for now. That is why the order shows this price.

As for the trade itself, it was executed properly, and the Balances window shows the execution price. You bought 1 contract @ 6.8558 and 1 more @ 6.8568. Hence the value in the Balances window should show 6.8563 for you.

I will add ability to show logs for the current and previous sessions trades, but anyway Balances always shows up to date information and money flow is already in the Logs tab.

[Fireball]

So my question is, I see that my account can have USDs and BTCs balance.  But I can only use BTCs to buy these futures contracts, correct?

That's visible only on the Exchange tab, which is for trading Bitcoins for other currencies (currently USD). Futures accounting is performed strictly in Bitcoins.

Are the USDs balance considered in calculating my margin?

Nope. If there is a really significant demand for this feature, then they could be included in calculation, but this would make the marginal system more complex.

[Stephen Gornick]

Looks like a pretty tight correlation between volume spikes at icbit and volatility of the BTC/USD:



[Edit: I'm an idiot.  That's not icbit volume, is it?]

[Stephen Gornick]

The @icbit_se twitter account shows the follow tweet:

"If the market won't go back an extra clearing to set new trading range will be done."
 - https://twitter.com/icbit_se/status/223701765839798272

What does "extra clearing" do?   i.e., if I hold some BUZ2 at the high end of the range, what happens to them?

[EnergyVampire]

Hello Fireball,

I'm getting an "Insecure Connection" warning when visiting https://icbit.se , what's up?

Certificate summary

• Holder: www.icbit.se
• Issuer: StartCom Class 1 Primary Intermediate Server CA
• Expires: July 29, 2012 10:43:00 AM GMT

Encryption protocol

• TLS v1.0 128 bit AES (2048 bit RSA/SHA)

[notme]

I requested a withdrawal of approximately 5.28 BTC yesterday that has still not hit the network.  Do withdrawals normally take this long?

[Fireball]

I requested a withdrawal of approximately 5.28 BTC yesterday that has still not hit the network.  Do withdrawals normally take this long?

Your transfer required a manual approval, which has already been done and bitcoins transferred. Sorry for the delay, we are working on making all withdrawals fast and safe.

[Fireball]

I'm getting an "Insecure Connection" warning when visiting https://icbit.se , what's up?

That's strange, certificate details are correct, and I am not getting the warning. What's your browser?

[notme]

I requested a withdrawal of approximately 5.28 BTC yesterday that has still not hit the network.  Do withdrawals normally take this long?

Your transfer required a manual approval, which has already been done and bitcoins transferred. Sorry for the delay, we are working on making all withdrawals fast and safe.

Got it, thanks!

[EnergyVampire]

I'm getting an "Insecure Connection" warning when visiting https://icbit.se , what's up?

That's strange, certificate details are correct, and I am not getting the warning. What's your browser?

I tried IceWeasel, FireFox, and Opera. I get warnings from all 3 of them.

[randomguy7]

I'm getting an "Insecure Connection" warning when visiting https://icbit.se , what's up?

That's strange, certificate details are correct, and I am not getting the warning. What's your browser?

I tried IceWeasel, FireFox, and Opera. I get warnings from all 3 of them.

Do you use Windows XP and haven't done any updates for quite some time? Then you need to update to get the root keys of the CA which signed the used certificate. Or go to startssl.com and install the CA root key manually into FF or whatever you use.

[EnergyVampire]

Do you use Windows XP and haven't done any updates for quite some time? Then you need to update to get the root keys of the CA which signed the used certificate. Or go to startssl.com and install the CA root key manually into FF or whatever you use.

I am not using Windows but Intersango.com, Bitmit.net and a couple other sites I visit also have StartCom as CA and I don't get the warnings.

Well, the certificate expires in 10 days or so, maybe the warnings will go away when it's renewed. *shrugs*

[Ichthyo]

Hello

can someone please help me understand why my trade got executed this way?
I'm still fighting in order to understand how the trading works exactly.

Right now, the orderbook is as follows

Order book (BUZ2)
Sell    Price    Buy
2   9.58   
25   9.1958   
25   9.1775   
25   9.1592   
21   8.6733   
   7.8   1
   7.05   1
   7   1
   6.9   1
   6.8312   1
Range 8.6733 - 9.5863

Now, I've issued a "buy market" for 1 contract. But, surprisingly I got the following execution, according to the "orders" pane at the bottom

5136   07/20 03:38   BUZ2   Buy   MKT   Filled   9.5863   1   0   

Thus I got an execution a the worst possible price, while there are lots of matching sell orders with a way better price. For example, why isn't my buy order matched with one of the sells at 8.67?

[Ichthyo]

....in continuation of the above:

next thing I tried to issue a "sell market" for 1 contract.
I noticed that seemingly my order got added to the orderbook position at 8.6733, since there are now 22 sells offered at that rate. But I can't find my order anywhere in the "your orders" pane. It is not filled yet, correct? For example, when I now wanted to cancel that order, how can this be achieved without that order being visible?

[Ichthyo]

please excuse my uneducated question... but what is the reasoning behind imposing a range limitation on the orders I can place. Again, in the situation showed above, the range is 8.6733 - 9.5863

Meanwhile the BTC rate has dropped significantly, and the futures market has adjusted. So, why preventing me from placing a buy offer at, say, 7.81  My position is profitable right now, and i'd like to close out partially and take some of the gains right now. Can someone please explain how this is supposed to work?

[Ichthyo]

further questions -- hopefully someone can explain that

• how is the "initial margin" calculated?
• in this column (initial margin), there is an entry in each row. What does that mean?
• so what is my actual margin available for trading? Is it the value in the "bitcoins" row or in the "BUZ2" row?
• and what is the maintenance level, at which level do I get a margin call, and what exactly happens then?

thanks for any clarification

[Fireball]

can someone please help me understand why my trade got executed this way?
I'm still fighting in order to understand how the trading works exactly.
Range 8.6733 - 9.5863

Now, I've issued a "buy market" for 1 contract. But, surprisingly I got the following execution, according to the "orders" pane at the bottom

5136   07/20 03:38   BUZ2   Buy   MKT   Filled   9.5863   1   0   

Thus I got an execution a the worst possible price, while there are lots of matching sell orders with a way better price. For example, why isn't my buy order matched with one of the sells at 8.67?

This is often confusing, and I should perhaps just hide the order "price" if the type of that order is "market", because this is not the price at which your order was executed. It is price "up to which" you agree to buy. Market orders will always start matching from the best order in the orderbook.

The resulting price is written in your "Balances" window, and that's what matters. Also, after clearing at 20:00 GMT everyday, if you have open positions, a variation margin is transferred depending on the market price to your account, and "execution price" for this position will be set to the price of the last clearing.

[Fireball]

....in continuation of the above:

next thing I tried to issue a "sell market" for 1 contract.
I noticed that seemingly my order got added to the orderbook position at 8.6733, since there are now 22 sells offered at that rate. But I can't find my order anywhere in the "your orders" pane. It is not filled yet, correct? For example, when I now wanted to cancel that order, how can this be achieved without that order being visible?

Sometimes there is a connection issue, so please just refresh the whole page if you suspect something didn't update as it should.

[Fireball]

please excuse my uneducated question... but what is the reasoning behind imposing a range limitation on the orders I can place. Again, in the situation showed above, the range is 8.6733 - 9.5863

Meanwhile the BTC rate has dropped significantly, and the futures market has adjusted. So, why preventing me from placing a buy offer at, say, 7.81  My position is profitable right now, and i'd like to close out partially and take some of the gains right now. Can someone please explain how this is supposed to work?

It is fine, it is obvious to me because I have many years of trading experience, however it might not be trivial for those who never dealt with exchanges.

The trading range limitation is part of the marginal system which prevents market crashes due to margin calls. By limiting the price movement to a certain price range, a maximum loss could be estimated and protective measures added *before* the market crashes due to margin call sell off.