What do we think about the margin call rules?

[tonyk]

But it does not buy below 10% either. So it is not 'up to' it is '10% penalty, period'.

I'm not sure about that, @tonyk

Let's assume:
Feed is at 300 BTS/USD
YPCP (Your Personal Call Price) is 320.
LA (the lowest ask) is 325.
SQP is at 330 (i.e. 10% above the feed)

You are margin-called because the trigger occurs: YPCP < LA < SQP.
Your ABBP (Actual Buy-Back Price) is 330 but if you are lucky your buy-back order can be filled with the LA at 325.
So you are margin-called below SQP, i.e. lower than 10% above the feed.

check yesterday's picture... did that order bought lower?

{edit}
Technically it can BUT the price [feed] must get worse than the initial call price.

If that's the case, that's even worse than I thought.

That's the reason why BM needs to explain this on a very detailed level, considering all corner cases.
Otherwise we are heading for yet another communication management disaster (no lessons learned in this area).

BM is the one who knows the code and we can only speculate by observing how the code behaves.
(Or we could check in the source code but I cannot do it myself as c++ is beyond my capabilities)

In the picture above the guy was called at 95064.93508181818 , as the price got worse for him to 95,788.39957 he will now buy any order in 104,571.42859 to 105,367.23953 range assuming there is no sell order lower than 104,571.42859....he of course is protected from buying cheap as we already established.

...please disregard the panic BTS seller at 107k for the purposes of this discussion.

[jakub]

Can you put your issue in the Friday meetup question.  Put it all high priority.  It should grab his attention.

I tried last Friday (thanks, @fuzzy) and BM briefly described his intentions but without going into any details and corner cases.
And the intentions are good, nobody can deny it but it's the actual implementation and nuances that matter and those complex issues are hard to discuss in a live conversation when time is limited.

What we need is a proper white-paper about margin-call rules.
Or at least BM's committed engagement in the discussion in this thread.

So far my impression is that BM has not had time to properly understand the arguments of people criticizing the current rules.
He keeps describing how his concept is meant to work theoretically but never really commented on practical issues that people have experienced.
Really bad communication, as we've had so many times in the past.

[topcandle]

Can you put your issue in the Friday meetup question.  Put it all high priority.  It should grab his attention. 

[jakub]

But it does not buy below 10% either. So it is not 'up to' it is '10% penalty, period'.

I'm not sure about that, @tonyk

Let's assume:
Feed is at 300 BTS/USD
YPCP (Your Personal Call Price) is 320.
LA (the lowest ask) is 325.
SQP is at 330 (i.e. 10% above the feed)

You are margin-called because the trigger occurs: YPCP < LA < SQP.
Your ABBP (Actual Buy-Back Price) is 330 but if you are lucky your buy-back order can be filled with the LA at 325.
So you are margin-called below SQP, i.e. lower than 10% above the feed.

check yesterday's picture... did that order bought lower?

{edit}
Technically it can BUT the price [feed] must get worse than the initial call price.

If that's the case, that's even worse than I thought.

That's the reason why BM needs to explain this on a very detailed level, considering all corner cases.
Otherwise we are heading for yet another communication management disaster (no lessons learned in this area).

BM is the one who knows the code and we can only speculate by observing how the code behaves.
(Or we could check in the source code but I cannot do it myself as c++ is beyond my capabilities)

[tonyk]

But it does not buy below 10% either. So it is not 'up to' it is '10% penalty, period'.

I'm not sure about that, @tonyk

Let's assume:
Feed is at 300 BTS/USD
YPCP (Your Personal Call Price) is 320.
LA (the lowest ask) is 325.
SQP is at 330 (i.e. 10% above the feed)

You are margin-called because the trigger occurs: YPCP < LA < SQP.
Your ABBP (Actual Buy-Back Price) is 330 but if you are lucky your buy-back order can be filled with the LA at 325.
So you are margin-called below SQP, i.e. lower than 10% above the feed.

check yesterday's picture... did that order bought lower?

{edit}
Technically it can BUT the price [feed] must get worse than the initial call price.

[jakub]

But it does not buy below 10% either. So it is not 'up to' it is '10% penalty, period'.

I'm not sure about that, @tonyk

Let's assume:
Feed is at 300 BTS/USD
YPCP (Your Personal Call Price) is 320.
LA (the lowest ask) is 325.
SQP is at 330 (i.e. 10% above the feed)

You are margin-called because the trigger occurs: YPCP < LA < SQP.
Your ABBP (Actual Buy-Back Price) is 330 but if you are lucky your buy-back order can be filled with the LA at 325.
So you are margin-called below SQP, i.e. lower than 10% above the feed.
 

[Pheonike]

The best rules are the ones the market embraces. Seems we have our answer.

Yea, but margin call rules are only part of the equation (other factors include the fees or UI) so we are trying to find how much impact the rules themselves have.

We have examples of rules that the market does embrace yet we go out of our way to avoid them.

[tonyk]

Rules don't need changed. All Params are there to reflect every proposed solution.

Not true!

You cannot have the "up to [but not more than] 10% penalty" rule without code changes[hard fork]. I like the 3% to 0% hard penalty more though, so a better solution does exist, indeed as of now.

That is the current rule.  You never pay more than 10%.

But it does not buy below 10% either. So it is not 'up to' it is '10% penalty, period'.

[jakub]

Rules don't need changed. All Params are there to reflect every proposed solution.

Not true!

You cannot have the "up to [but not more than] 10% penalty" rule without code changes[hard fork]. I like the 3% to 0% hard penalty more though, so a better solution does exist, indeed as of now.

That is the current rule.  You never pay more than 10%.

But the current rule also implies that the trigger for your margin call can be 10% above the feed.
You are indeed protected because you never pay more than 10% but prior to that you are screwed by being margin-called 10% too early in the first place.

So the current rule basically works like this: we will put you in trouble first and then we will offer you protection to alleviate your pain.
It's like an evil policeman who first robs you and then offers his help to find the thief.

[sittingduck]

Rules don't need changed. All Params are there to reflect every proposed solution.

Not true!

You cannot have the "up to [but not more than] 10% penalty" rule without code changes[hard fork]. I like the 3% to 0% hard penalty more though, so a better solution does exist, indeed as of now.

That is the current rule.  You never pay more than 10%.   

[jakub]

Rules don't need changed. All Params are there to reflect every proposed solution.

Including this one?
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19102.msg252973.html#msg252973
And even if it requires a hard fork?

If the answer is positive, I'll make a committee proposal as soon as the GUI starts supporting it.
This way we could fix the margin call rules without waiting for BM to do it for us.

[tonyk]

Rules don't need changed. All Params are there to reflect every proposed solution.

Not true!

You cannot have the "up to [but not more than] 10% penalty" rule without code changes[hard fork]. I like the 3% to 0% hard penalty more though, so a better solution does exist, indeed as of now.

[jakub]

If I voted it would be on an option like "I'm not a trader but I feel this subject needs to be more discussed/is important/worries me that affects liquidity" or whatever.

I've added this option.

[sittingduck]

Rules don't need changed. All Params are there to reflect every proposed solution.   

[Akado]

I'm not a trader so I can't give any input, but I've seen this topic quite some times in the past and for some reason it keeps coming up. It seems something is wrong with it and if these rules keep people from trading on margin, which means less liquidity, this needs to be properly taken care of.

If I voted it would be on an option like "I'm not a trader but I feel this subject needs to be more discussed/is important/worries me that affects liquidity" or whatever. This affects everyone in BTS, even non-traders, if it affects liquidity.