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

[Ichthyo]

To put this argument the other way round: If the fees would be so large that trading on ICBIT is no longer an interesting option, people will just start being reluctant to trade, the volume will decrease until either trading ceases, an competitor steps in with lower fees or Fireball "gets the message".

I think that's exactly what will happen.

so, nothing to worry -- free markets will do their job.


Just for the record: right now the level of fees on ICBIT is not much of a problem; I'd say its easier to make profit there then e.g. with day trading.

[1713554917]

1713554917

[picobit]

so, nothing to worry -- free markets will do their job.


Just for the record: right now the level of fees on ICBIT is not much of a problem; I'd say its easier to make profit there then e.g. with day trading.

+1 to both.

I think it is only fair that Fireball earn some money for his efforts too.  I also want to be paid for my job.  
Of course the customers will be shopping around if it gets too expensive, but right now icbit seems more attactive than bitfinex, 1broker or mpex.

[Fireball]

I think it is only fair that Fireball earn some money for his efforts too.  I also want to be paid for my job.  
Of course the customers will be shopping around if it gets too expensive, but right now icbit seems more attactive than bitfinex, 1broker or mpex.

Thanks :-)

And since you compare the three services, is there anything (service, user interface related) which is missing in ICBIT but exists in competitors implementation, and which is very useful?

[ThePok]

the lending of bitfinex is cool. 120% on usd....to bad i dont trust tham

[Ichthyo]

Am I right that the old Gold and Oil Futures will be settled today?


In that case this will be a thrilling day, in the light of the recent price drop and rebounce on Gox right now

[Fireball]

Am I right that the old Gold and Oil Futures will be settled today?

In that case this will be a thrilling day, in the light of the recent price drop and rebounce on Gox right now

Yes, today indeed. We'll see ;-)

[Stephen Gornick]

Yes, today indeed. We'll see ;-)

Would you post the final settlement numbers please?

I see the WTI settle price was something like $97.31 on Nymex, I didn't look up COMEX but I'm assuming they would be within pennies.  So if the CLG3 "last" was 3.8709 BTC, that must mean the Mt. Gox daily weighted average price was somewhere near $25.14 today at 20:00 UTC.

[Fireball]

Yes, today indeed. We'll see ;-)

Would you post the final settlement numbers please?

I see the WTI settle price was something like $97.31 on Nymex, I didn't look up COMEX but I'm assuming they would be within pennies.  So if the CLG3 "last" was 3.8709, that must mean the Mt. Gox daily weighted average price was somewhere near $25.14 today at 20:00 UTC.

Of course.

Weighted avg at MtGox was $25.13093.
Gold price was $1634.3 -> 65.0314 BTC. Traded volume was 268 contracts (eq. 26.8 tr.oz of gold)
Oil price was $97.28 -> 3.8709 BTC. Traded volume was 1513 contracts (eq. 1513 barrels of oil).

Speaking about numbers, BUH3 Open Interest is being exactly 5000 now.
Thank you and happy trading.

[Fireball]

There is an unexpected down time for the server. I will post an announcement when it goes back online.

[Fireball]

All services are back online.

[zvs]

A comment about the first comment. If the "ultimate goal is to break... bla bla bla..." so why the contract itself is calculated in USD not in BTC? If the contract was calculated in BTC the fee would not rise with the USD/BTC rate and remained steady.

Bitcoinnica was a looting operation. If you justify current fees by being similar you are effectively saying that icbit.se is a looting operation too. And with such high fees it actually is.

I've never been on icbit.se, but it was pretty easy to tell Bitcoinica was BS from the very start,

i remember mailing the guy that his site was essentially just a gambling site, since it had no actual connection to any bitcoin market (and bizarre ""bid"" and ""ask"" numbers that guaranteed bitcoinica making shitloads)

[picobit]

I've never been on icbit.se, but it was pretty easy to tell Bitcoinica was BS from the very start,

i remember mailing the guy that his site was essentially just a gambling site, since it had no actual connection to any bitcoin market (and bizarre ""bid"" and ""ask"" numbers that guaranteed bitcoinica making shitloads)

1broker.com has the same problem now (apart from the bizarre numbers).  Icbit, on the other hand, is a "real" market.  You buy and sell futures to other customers on an exchange.  The flipside of the coin is that a "futures contract" is slightly more complicated than a simple leveraged buy/sell, and that the price can depart significantly from the spot market.

I have used icbit for half a year now, the site works well and the operator (Fireball) appears both honest and competent (neither is a given in the bitcoin world, unfortunately).  However, past performance is not guarantee for future performance, the site may be hacked, closed by the authorities, scammed, shut down and run, taken over by the mafia or suffer any other unfortunate fate tomorrow.  So as always when you place your bitcoins on a website, take care and don't gamble everything.  :-)

[canalta]

For automated market making purposes, an API-directed withdrawal facility (such as the Mt. Gox  send_simple function) would be very handy. Does such an operation exist now? If not, do you plan to add one?

[Fireball]

For automated market making purposes, an API-directed withdrawal facility (such as the Mt. Gox  send_simple function) would be very handy. Does such an operation exist now? If not, do you plan to add one?

No. Such API function would expose a security risk. One possible solution would be adding a function which sends to already predefined, confirmed address (via two factor authentication, at least) which can't be changed using API.

[canalta]

For automated market making purposes, an API-directed withdrawal facility (such as the Mt. Gox  send_simple function) would be very handy. Does such an operation exist now? If not, do you plan to add one?

No. Such API function would expose a security risk. One possible solution would be adding a function which sends to already predefined, confirmed address (via two factor authentication, at least) which can't be changed using API.

That's a great solution.  I agree that Mt. Gox's send_simple makes me a little uncomfortable. 

Do you plan to add that feature?

[exxe]

I've never been on icbit.se, but it was pretty easy to tell Bitcoinica was BS from the very start,

i remember mailing the guy that his site was essentially just a gambling site, since it had no actual connection to any bitcoin market (and bizarre ""bid"" and ""ask"" numbers that guaranteed bitcoinica making shitloads)

1broker.com has the same problem now (apart from the bizarre numbers).  Icbit, on the other hand, is a "real" market.  You buy and sell futures to other customers on an exchange.

This is only partly true.  1Broker has a connection to the Bitcoin market. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to survive the volatile BTC/USD market. Saying that 1Broker has a "problem" is quite unfair. Both, CFDs and futures have their advantages and can coexist in Bitcoin-world as they can in "real" financial markets today.

[canalta]

Using the ICBIT api, I get multiple orders entered for BUH3 after sending a single create_order command.  Sometimes I get as few as 4, and other times as many as 80, but never 1 as I would expect.

Is anyone else entering orders using the API, and if so, have you seen this kind of problem?

[Fireball]

Using the ICBIT api, I get multiple orders entered for BUH3 after sending a single create_order command.  Sometimes I get as few as 4, and other times as many as 80, but never 1 as I would expect.

Is anyone else entering orders using the API, and if so, have you seen this kind of problem?

I PM you to debug the problem.

[picobit]

This is only partly true.  1Broker has a connection to the Bitcoin market. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to survive the volatile BTC/USD market.  Saying that 1Broker has a "problem" is quite unfair.

Good to hear. 

It looks a bit worrying from the outside, but I really hope that you are right because:

Both, CFDs and futures have their advantages and can coexist in Bitcoin-world as they can in "real" financial markets today.

Indeed! 

And I do wish you luck (but limit my exposure, as I do with icbit, too).

And while we are at it: I must say that it is a lot easier to get into or out of a position on 1broker compared to icbit, mainly due to the relatively low volume and corresponding high spread at icbit.  But I guess that it is also partly due to the nature of CFDs versus futures.

[Fireball]

And while we are at it: I must say that it is a lot easier to get into or out of a position on 1broker compared to icbit, mainly due to the relatively low volume and corresponding high spread at icbit.  But I guess that it is also partly due to the nature of CFDs versus futures.

Though I appreciate exxe's desire to provide a CFD service, and getting in or out of a position may indeed be very easy there as long as the usage is small. With the increasing usage and demand, it would become harder and harder to "make the market" (provide users the ability to buy and sell CFDs as easy as now). This is usually regulated by increasing the spread level.
And this small detail has always kept me out of using this kind of services (when it comes to both fiat and BTC money).

For example, if you look carefully at their website, there is absolutely no promise about the spread values. It just reports "current spread". There is no such thing as max. spread value, max buy/sell volume or any other similar figures.
Imagine that when you're trading at ICBIT, you would not know what the value of Fee would be for your next trade, and that only ICBIT own orders would be displayed in the orderbook and you would have to either agree to them or wait when they change.
Open market FTW :-)

What I said above applies to all Forex-alike and Bitcoinica-alike trading services, including Forex brokers too.