

Show HN: Bitfuture – Lock in the Bitcoin exchange rate - jboggan
https://www.bitfuture.com

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wmf
This really should show more before you sign in. How are the contracts
structured? What is the order book?

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jboggan
The contracts are 60-minute forwards; you are agreeing to buy/sell Bitcoin at
the current price (determined by the CoinDesk BPI) but 60 minutes from now. At
that time the Bitcoin is transferred from the seller to the buyer, and the
strike price (denominated in $) is paid in Bitcoin at the current price. The
net effect is that the seller nets a small amount of Bitcoin if the price
falls, giving them an amount equivalent to the original exchange rate. If the
price rises the buyer nets a small amount. This is essentially a way of
locking-in the rate now if for various reasons (waiting on blockchain
confirmation for example) you cannot immediately sell off a parcel of Bitcoin.
This would be very useful to payment operators, ATM operators, and merchants,
for example.

The order book right now is shallow and comprised of our own funds; however we
are in the process of onboarding several interested parties so I know that
will improve in time.

Showing more before signup is an excellent suggestion; if you are not averse
to submitting an email address you can try the paper trading site with 100
fake Bitcoins at paper-trade-bitfuture.com . Thanks for the feedback!

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tony_landis
Good luck with the project. I suggest getting these details on the front page
above the signup.

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eglover
No details, almost blank homepage asking for sign-up and a suspicious idea to
begin with.

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jboggan
Our previous versions were solicited to friends and family, people who were
going to sign up anyway and who knew roughly that we were trying to build a
platform for Bitcoin derivatives. I suppose I've been way too focused on
getting the double-entry bookkeeping and other accounting layers perfect to
think "would I sign up for this landing page". So yes, this is very helpful
feedback (even if it does make me feel a bit silly).

Previous feedback had been that our tutorials were extremely long and that our
interface was too cluttered; I think it's probable we swung too far in the
opposite direction and need to find a healthy medium.

I don't think it's a suspicious idea if you start to think about the problem
that volatility causes with Bitcoin adoption. There are many derivatives
platforms out there now beginning to grow but most cater to offshore
sophisticated investors and speculators. We are trying to build a market
around a derivative product that would be eminently useful to Bitcoin
businesses and make serious steps towards other derivative products that would
smooth out the bumps in the Bitcoin price.

Thanks for the feedback.

~~~
eglover
Ugh, Bitcoins aren't stock, but I suppose for those caught up in its (so-
called) "volatility" and whatever "derivatives" are supposed to be, this could
be helpful. Sorry, not for me.

~~~
jboggan
The SEC agrees that they are not stock or securities! [1]

Bitcoin payment processing (or ATMs, or foreign remittances) is going to be a
big business but many of the current operators are charging only 1-3% as a
transaction fee. It's not uncommon for there to be drops of that magnitude
during the time it takes the payment to process and the transaction to verify
in the blockchain, let alone be sold off as fiat to balance the payment
processor's books. This is one way of hedging against that.

It's also effectively a way to short Bitcoin in the short term (not to 0)
since it gives you a way to profit from a downswing.

[1] - [http://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-
bulletins/investoral...](http://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-
bulletins/investoralertsia_bitcoin.html#.U8cRYY1dWkQ)

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elijahchancey
Really cool idea!

