Short Tokens: SETH

Margin trading is one of the most commonly used trading mechanisms on traditional stock markets. Decentralized margin tokens allow anyone to quickly and easily take a leveraged position on a given token.

What is Short ETH (SETH)?

Short ETH (SETH) is a tokenized leveraged "short position" on ETH.

SETH's price is inversely correlated with the price of ETH: if the price of ETH goes down by $1, the price SETH goes up by $1 (and vice versa).

Margin Tokens (like SETH) allow users to significantly amplify the swings of their portfolio.

How is Short ETH priced?

To understand how margin tokens are priced, it's important to understand that these tokens have dates, collateral, and leverage associated with them.

Token Dating

SETH tokens are designed with a 28 day open period, after which the short position expires and becomes fixed to the market price. The expiration date of the short position is clearly defined in the token name both on DDEX and within the SETH contract:

 

In the example above, the short position lasts until January 30th. After which the token price is fixed to market price, and can be exchanged at anytime.

Token Pricing

When a new SETH token is created, the price is based on the following formula (source: Expo Trading):

Price (SETH) = Collateral - Price (Collateral) * Interest

and Interest = e ^ (Interest Rate * #days_since_start / 365)

As of today, this looks like:

Leverage

Leverage is the factor that a margin token moves compared to the underlying asset. Larger leverage yields greater price swings. Consider the following example, based on 1/15/2019 numbers:

Current SETH price = ~$79.28  | Current Leverage = ~1.53x | Current ETH price = ~$122.03

Let's assume that the price of ETH drops 5% in value to ~$115.93

This is a $6.10 drop in price, so SETH's price will go up by $6.10. Leverage indicates that SETH's relative value should increase by 1.53 * 5% = ~7.7%

To check this:

SETH price = $79.28 + $6.10 = $85.38 (which is ~7.7% up. Checks out!)

Margin Calls

A margin call occurs when the price of the asset drops below a threshold minimum value. Typically this occurs with very large price swings in the underlying asset (ETH). This is a mechanism to make sure that the collateral in the token contracts is enough to cover all parties.

A margin call results in an automatic dutch auction at the current price. The token position is considered closed in the same way that a token position closes after the time expiration.

Summary

Margin tokens like SETH allow users to leverage a short position on ETH, amplifying the swings of their portfolio. Each SETH position lasts for a maximum of 28 days. We will list new SETH tokens continuously on DDEX. For more information on SETH and other margin tokens, please see the links below.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to reach out in any of our support channels.

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More information on Margin Tokens and dydx:

dYdX Margin Token Paper: https://margintokens.dydx.exchange/

expo trading FAQ: https://help.expotrading.com/frequently-asked-questions

dYdX Website: https://dydx.exchange/ 

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Thanks for your support!

DDEX Team
2019/1/15

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