
CBOE exchange website down minutes after releasing Bitcoin futures - kgos
https://twitter.com/kunalgosar318/status/939998633277009920
======
shit-show
All your resources needed for today's Bitcoin Futures Launch on CBOE:

CBOE Chart Updates: [http://www.cboe.com/delayedquote/advanced-
charts?ticker=XBT%...](http://www.cboe.com/delayedquote/advanced-
charts?ticker=XBT%2fF8)

CBOE XBT - Bitcoin (USD) Futures Table:
[http://www.cboe.com/delayedquote/futures-
quotes](http://www.cboe.com/delayedquote/futures-quotes)

Cryptonaire live forecast updates:
[https://cryptonaire.com](https://cryptonaire.com)

Bloomberg Live Coverage:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/live/us](https://www.bloomberg.com/live/us)

CMC for BTC indexing including non-US pairs:
[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets)

WCI for BTC indexing only US pairs:
[https://www.worldcoinindex.com/coin/bitcoin](https://www.worldcoinindex.com/coin/bitcoin)

~~~
bob_theslob646
This comment is the exact reason why I cringe when anyone mentions anything
related to trading.

Notice, he/she did not link anything related to how the future contract works?

How can you trade something you do not understand?

I would be fired the first day if I couldn't explain to my boss how the
instrument/contract was constructed.

How do you think quants model? _First they understand how the contract works_

If they mess the basics up, then "Houston , we have a problem."

~~~
Legogris
It's "resources needed for today's Bitcoin Futures Launch on CBOE", not
"resources needed to understand how future contracts work".

While those would certainly be good as well, they assume that you know what's
going on in the first place. It's not like we need to post a primer on JS and
node ever time a new npm package is posted.

------
Maarten88
Ok, so these bitcoin futures let people bet on the future bitcoin price
without actually owning any bitcoins, without having any actual stake in the
actual market. (these futures are settled in cash, so nobody ever has to
deliver any actual bitcoins)

That seems to be an ultimate insult and revenge of the finance industry toward
the original idea behind bitcoin.

I am again amazed how the finance industry gets to have their own tax-free
casinos (where they play the game of I win / You loose with other peoples
money) while ordinary gambling addicts have all kinds of rules to play by and
taxes to pay when they need a fix for their habit.

That said, I also fail to see why any sane person would want to play this
specific bitcoin futures casino. Even at current market cap, the bitcoin price
seems to be easily manipulated by a few "bitcoin whales", so it would seem the
odds are stacked heavily against these new wannabee bitcoin investors. It
seems like a new way to make even more money for big bitcoin traders.

I'm grabbing popcorn.

~~~
closeparen
I thought the original idea of Bitcoin was to be a currency and make fiat
money obsolete. The finance industry is simply acknowledging that it’s a
speculative asset and mostly interesting for its volatility, something that
fits well within its longstanding frameworks.

~~~
kjrose
This is my thinking. The volatility of bitcoin is insane and fascinating.
It’ll be a real experiment if futures flattens it out.

------
narrator
And here I thought it was Bitcoin that had scaling issues. Someone should make
a futures market for Bitcoin on the Ethereum block chain settled in ETH just
for irony.

~~~
nerdponx
I'm honestly surprised that there aren't more crypto financial instruments
that are implemented/valued in other cryptos.

~~~
55555
The problem is they are heavily correlated in downward movement. They all
crash together. So you cant effectively short BTC in ETH because even if you
win, you lose.

~~~
ro_sharp
Take a look at ripple

------
somid3
Can someone explain how the bid/ask and data for futures can be interpreted?
Sorry futures noob here.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
Bid is latest buy order. Ask/Offer is latest sell order.

Many exchanges have the “maker-taker” model. If you add liquidity to the order
book, you are paid by the Exchange. If you take liquidity away from the order
book, you pay the Exchange.

~~~
Veratyr
It's not the latest order, it's the highest (bid)/lowest (ask) _open_ order.

------
Narkov
Just their "marketing" website. Trading systems look normal.

~~~
wyldfire
Not sure whether it's the same site but the site which hosts current prices is
unresponsive: [http://cfe.cboe.com/cfe-products/xbt-cboe-bitcoin-
futures](http://cfe.cboe.com/cfe-products/xbt-cboe-bitcoin-futures)

~~~
blibble
the trading system isn't a website: it is fix-fast (data) + fix (trading) over
dedicated links

they can't packet the actual exchange because they don't have a link to it

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apaprocki
Just as a data point — as of this posting, the volume is a whopping... 828.

~~~
tr4cefl0w
Trading just started and CBOE is not nearly as big and as active as CME.

Also, trading volume for futures in general is pretty low. You're rarely going
to see volume above 100k a Sunday night. Coffee futures have around 23k volume
right now.

~~~
apaprocki
I’m well aware, it was meant as a data point for anyone not aware who could
possibly think for a second their public website going down has anything to do
with demand :)

~~~
lallysingh
I suspect a lot more people are interested in watching it than immediately
investing in it.

------
csomar
I wonder if they are getting DDOS'ed. Many crypto exchanges do get DDOS'ed
before a big move. It is the nature of the beast since these market are not
regulated and the "elite" guys operating on it think this is how free markets
work (whoever has the most toys win).

~~~
ycombobreaker
The CBOE website is separate from the trading system. Futures in the US are
regulated by the CFTC. There is no reason to believe that this is
manipulation. As others have mentioned, it is likely that their website is
simply getting hugged by the Internet due to the new contract.

~~~
csomar
I know that, but DDOSers target everything even if it doesn't stop operations.

I also think some bitcoin exchanges are using this model too. Bitfinex trading
did not stop when their website went down the last time.

------
chicagomint
Anyone have a link to a public API endpoint? Status Page? or has trading
ceased entirely?

Unanticipated demand? ddos? what's going on here?

~~~
modeless
Trading is unaffected. You can see quotes at any brokerage that allows trading
futures, though you may need a paid subscription for access to non-delayed
quote data. Look for the symbol XBTF18.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a DDoS attack, as all bitcoin exchanges
have suffered from them, but I don't know what they think they're
accomplishing because unlike bitcoin exchanges the CBOE website is completely
separate from the trading systems.

------
joezydeco
So what keeps one of the so-called "whales" with massive balances from buying
a huge amount of put orders and then tanking the market with a huge afterhours
sell just before the execution date?

Buy the coins back at the depressed price, and you could do this every month
like clockwork.

~~~
HankB99
(Not a trading whiz.) Is there anything in this strategy that would prevent
any other trader from piggybacking on the swings and making money? I could it
see it working the first month but I think a lot of other traders (perhaps
with better trading equipment - think HFT) would be prepared and could split
the available profit in subsequent months.

------
empath75
I think all the bitcoin fans making this out to be a big deal is kind of
funny. The volume of futures exchanges shits on any of the fly-by-night
bitcoin exchanges. Professional traders don’t google CBOE to look at marketing
material, lol.

~~~
adsfasdf2332
I think the consensus in the bitcoin community is that it won't have any
effect and Bitcoin will continue chugging along as it has.

It was mainly the bears saying the futures would increase shorts on bitcoin.

Can't imagine anyone in their right mind would short bitcoin right now
though...

~~~
GhostVII
> Can't imagine anyone in their right mind would short bitcoin right now
> though...

Why not? I can't believe anyone in their right mind would significantly invest
in Bitcoin right now.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
One can simultaneously believe something is neither worth buying nor shorting.
In this case, Bitcoin’s volatility and meteoric rise make predicting the
timing of its crash risky.

------
growthkarl
Shocking, shocking...

