Abstract: In this piece we look at the exchange-traded bitcoin products on offer in the market. Grayscale is the current clear leader, with over 550,000 bitcoin under management in its Bitcoin trust. We examine various issues with the Grayscale product, including the lack of redeemability and the fact that it trades at a large premium...Read More
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Alexander Höptner as the new Chief Executive Officer of 100x Group, the holding group for HDR Global Trading Limited, owner and operator of the BitMEX platform. Alex will lead 100x Group as we pursue our wider vision of shaping the evolution of digital financial services through strategic...Read More
100x Group are delighted to announce our continued financial support to open source developer Alex Hultman for his work on µWS. The project provides high-quality, lightweight, and scalable websocket support for NodeJS systems, allowing us to have a smaller server footprint to support our clients without sacrificing reliability. Alex introduced stream compression to the project...Read More
With bitcoin approaching all-time highs followed by the “Thanksgiving slump” sell-off, it’s been an extremely active week for crypto trading, so we wanted to share a short update on the underlying reasons why our platform performed well over this period. Over the past 12 months, an incredible amount of work has been delivered in the...Read More
Abstract: In this post, 100x Group grantee Gleb Naumenko and Antoine Riard explore a different approach to channel jamming mitigation. They are suggesting using UTXO ownership proofs (a.k.a. Stake Certificates) to solve the channel jamming problem. Previously, these proofs were only used in the Lightning Network at channel announcement time to prevent malicious actors from...Read More
100x Group is delighted to announce that it is providing a US$20,000 grant to Gary Kramlich to develop the open source instant messaging client Pidgin. The Pidgin program allows users to log in and use multiple chat networks simultaneously. Gary started working on the project in 2003, before taking over as the lead developer in...Read More
Abstract: In this report we examine merge mining on the Bitcoin blockchain. In the last year or so, on average each Bitcoin block mined contains around two commitment hashes from other blockchains somewhere in the coinbase transaction, indicating that most miners are conducting multiple forms of merge mining. Currently over 90% of the Bitcoin hashrate...Read More
We are expanding our Altcoin offering further with the launch of three new Altcoin/USDT underlying quanto futures contracts. Trading will begin on 30 October 2020 at 04:00 UTC. Twenty-four hours before the start of trading, the new contracts will be visible on the platform as Unlisted. Binance Coin (BNB) powers the Binance ecosystem and is...Read More
Abstract: In this short piece, 100x Group grantee Calvin Kim provides a quick update on the development of the Utreexo implementation. Calvin is now looking forward to focusing on performance, integration with existing Bitcoin implementations, and adding robust tests to the codebase. Last year, when my first PR was merged, the Utreexo project was just...Read More
Abstract: This report examines the concept of brainwallets and in which contexts they may be useful. As an experiment eight Bitcoin private keys were created, using passphrases from popular works of fiction and other media. All the funds were swept away in a short amount of time and in one case, remarkably, the funds were...Read More
In response to the popularity of the LINKUSDTZ20 since its launch on 11 September 2020, we are now launching a LINKUSDT quanto perpetual swap contract with up to 50x leverage on 16 October 2020 at 04:00 UTC. In addition, the maximum leverage of the current LINKUSDT quanto futures contract will also be increased from 33x...Read More
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Malcolm Wright as Chief Compliance Officer of 100x Group, the group behind HDR Global Trading Limited, owner and operator of the BitMEX platform. This will see Malcolm lead 100x Group’s compliance efforts globally while reporting directly to Vivien Khoo, Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer....Read More
We’re currently seeing a diverse set of different cryptocurrencies trying to establish their roots in the global financial landscape. With this, the demand for platforms that allow crypto users to exchange between different assets also continues to grow. Crypto swaps and exchanges make it possible for the average crypto user to have easy access to...Read More
Abstract: We examine the short seven year history of decentralised exchanges (dexes), including the first significant iteration of the technology, Counterparty. We consider why these early attempts failed and how they evolved into the Uniswap protocol we have today, with its clever mechanism for inducing and managing liquidity. We explore Uniswap, its copycats and how...Read More
Abstract: We have installed the Blockstream Bitcoin Satellite system, a way to download and verify Bitcoin’s blockchain via satellite, without the need for an internet connection. We were able to set up the system reasonably quickly and the satellite connection does indeed have enough bandwidth to keep the node at Bitcoin’s tip, most of the...Read More
Last week, as Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, dropped down close to $10,000, the markets got tense. After nearly a month over $10,000, with the better part of it pushing and pulling against the $12,000 mark, a massive 13 percent drop over two days was a cause for concern. But now, one week on from...Read More
We are committed to ensuring BitMEX is fair and efficient for all our users, and this is why we will be introducing a Quote Value Ratio (QVR) Trading Rule from 00:00:00 UTC on 15 September 2020, initially in “Warning Only” mode for a period of one week. This is part of our ongoing efforts to...Read More
Crypto Spot Volumes Soar, with Top Tier Exchanges Dominating In August, Top-Tier volumes increased 58.3% to $529bn while Lower-Tier volumes increased 30.2% to $291bn. Top-Tier exchanges now represent 64% of total volume (vs 60% in July). Binance (Grade A) was the largest Top-Tier exchange by volume in August, trading $124.9bn (up 83%). This was followed...Read More
Source: The Grapes Of Wrath – 1940 I lack access to nightclubs and most other forms of revelry; therefore, I decided to become a crypto peasant. I’m farming the latest and greatest shitcoin DeFi projects. While I deride many of these projects as activity resulting in economic waste, there is an underlying proto-banking infrastructure that...Read More
Abstract: We provide a follow up to our previous piece, a comparison between the Antminer S19 Pro and the Whatsminer M30S+. We focus on the thermal characteristics of the miners and provide thermal images. The thermal images indicate more clearly that the Whatsminer has a higher operating temperature than the Antminer, while both devices have...Read More
Abstract: We compare and measure various performance metrics for two of the latest and most energy efficient Bitcoin mining products, MicroBT’s Whatsminer M30S+ and Bitmain’s Antminer S19 Pro. Obviously the more expensive 7nm Bitmain product is more powerful, however the miners are pretty similar in terms of output. Our data over a short three day...Read More
Top-Tier Exchange Volumes Surge, Gaining Market Share In July, Top-Tier volumes increased 42.1% to $334bn while Lower-Tier volumes decreased 38.1% to $224bn. Top-Tier exchanges now represent 60% of total spot volume. Deribit Options Volumes Set New Record, Tripling Previous High Deribit’s options volumes have set a new all-time daily high in July, dwarfing the previous record by...Read More
Bitcoin’s recent burst past $12,000 was unlike the first, and is potentially a sign of things to come. Over a week ago, on 2 August, when Bitcoin rose past $12,000 for the first time since June 2019, its price dropped by 8 percent within the hour. The rapid rise tested a bull trap where trigger...Read More
Abstract: Bitcoin’s Taproot softfork upgrade looks almost ready and the Bitcoin community has started to seriously discuss the potential activation methodologies. In this piece, we summarise the main choices when it comes to the activation and discuss the most significant points of contention. We conclude by postulating that there is no perfect activating methodology. Any...Read More
We are launching a LTCUSD quanto perpetual swap contract with up to 33x leverage on 30 July 2020 at 04:00 UTC. This is the fifth quanto contract to be launched on the BitMEX platform, offering users further diversification of trading opportunities. It follows the successful introduction of the XRPUSD and BCHUSD quanto perpetual swaps and...Read More
Abstract: This piece is written by Bitcoin Core contributor and researcher, Gleb Naumenko. Gleb is a recipient of 100x Group’s Bitcoin developer grant program. In this article Gleb writes about how Bitcoin Core connects to other nodes on the network. He first provides some background about the latest default connection policy in Bitcoin Core 0.20.0,...Read More
When Ben, Sam and I came together in 2014 to launch BitMEX, we endeavoured to create a derivatives trading platform worthy of the future potential of the cryptocurrency capital markets. We set about building a fair, transparent, efficient and highly secure platform. We’ve come a long way since those early days, and are immensely proud...Read More
Crypto Volumes Plummet in June In June, both Top Tier volumes and Lower Tier spot volumes decreased drastically to $177bn (-36%) and $466bn (-53%) respectively. Spot volumes have gradually dwindled throughout the month of June, now representing roughly half of the daily volumes seen in the previous month. Institutional Options Volumes on CME Hit New...Read More
Since HDR’s inception just over five years ago, the company has grown and developed dramatically, and through the BitMEX platform, we’re well recognised as a fast-growing and pioneering financial technology company. With an eye for the long-term growth, development and success of the company, we are always looking to attract brilliant people to join our...Read More
We’re very pleased to announce that OKCoin and HDR Global Trading Limited (which owns and operates the BitMEX cryptocurrency trading platform) are each providing a US$75,000 grant, totaling US$150,000 over 12 months, to Bitcoin Core developer Amiti Uttarwar. The HDR element of the grant is based on the open-source template grant contract. As dedicated supporters...Read More
