Binary options reimagined

Binary options are a wildly popular betting format throughout the world. They distill complex scenarios like trading the price of a precious metal or cryptocurrency that is constantly moving into a binary win or loss outcome with a fixed payout at a fixed point in the future.

But they've earned a bad reputation because most binary options games are on centralized platforms run by shady operators who manipulate the price of the underlying instrument at the exact time of your bet settlement to make you lose.

A centralized platform can adjust the price of whatever you are trading at their discretion to make your bet settle as a loser and then they can put the price back to what it was a few milliseconds later. After all, who can say definitively what the price of Bitcoin or Ethereum or gold is at any one point in time?

Such prices are calculated from hundreds of different exchanges and input sources and factors and a centralized platform can quote any price it wants for such an asset based on whatever algorithm they want to use.

And because you are betting against the house they also have an incentive to manipulate their prices around your bet settlement time to make you lose.

Rogue Index incorporates many tangible improvements to the binary options model that guarantee fairness and transparency, including:

Big Improvement #1: Zero House Edge

Many binary options operators take up to 5% of your winnings as commissions, meaning that even if they're honest you are still going to lose in the long run. Rogue Index has zero house edge built into the payout odds and there are zero fees charged on your winnings, making it the fairest game of chance in the world where you have the best chance of winning than anywhere else.

Big Improvement #2: Underlying instrument price is generated randomly

There are multiple benefits for the player of betting on an index that is generated from random numbers instead of an index that represents the price of a real world asset. Firstly, random numbers can be generated in a provably-fair manner that eliminates the possibility of manipulation. A random number is a definitive result as opposed to an asset price that is discretionary.

Secondly, depending on the input parameters it is possible to calculate the exact probability of what random number will be generated. This means that liquidity providers can have absolute confidence in their payout odds which means that players can place much bigger bets on randomly generated numbers than on real world numbers that can be manipulated.

Big Improvement #3: Settlement time is a serial number not a timestamp

When Rogue requests a random number from random.org to update the Rogue Index price, random.org replies with the number and also a sequential serial number associated with the newly generated random number. That serial number proves the random number was generated in sequence and that we didn't keep generating a new random number until we got one that we liked.

This allows us to modify the traditional binary options model of using a timestamp as the expiry deadline to instead using these serial numbers as the expiry deadline of all bets. When the serial number of your choosing is hit your bet is settled at whatever price is associated with that serial number. It's impossible for Rogue to influence or manipulate this system in any way.

For example, the current price of Rogue Index is 56,750 and the current serial number associated with that price is 12,360,893. You place a bet of 100,000 ROGUE that the price will go UP in 10 Updates.

This means the expiry deadline of your bet is 12,360,893 + 10 = 12,360,903. So whatever the price is when random.org delivers the result for serial number 12,360,903 is the price that your bet will be settled at. If that price is above 56,750 your bet will be settled as a winner and 200,000 ROGUE will be instantly sent to your wallet in the same transaction that updates the Rogue Index with the new price and serial number pair. If the price at that serial number is below 56,750 your bet will be settled as a loser and the house bankroll will keep your 100,000 ROGUE stake.

Not only is the generation of the price updates provably-fair but the settlement mechanics make it impossible for Rogue to manipulate the result of your bet or to hold back your winning payout.

Big Improvement #4: Game mechanics are on-chain

Each price and serial number pair received from random.org is immediately posted on-chain in a transaction that updates the Rogue Index price and which settles all bets due to expire at that serial number. This create an immutable record of the price and serial number pair that can be used to verify that this update matches the price and serial number pair that random.org posts on the verification page of their website at the same time.

The entire price update and bet settlement process is handled by verified smart contracts with publicly viewable code that can be relied upon to do exactly the same thing every single time as they follow the unbending laws of code and mathematics. All winning payouts sent to players' wallets are actually part of the same transaction that updates the Rogue Index smart contract with the new price and serial number pair. This transaction and all its related data and actions become an immutable on-chain record that can be viewed by anyone on roguescan.io.