Trade · the galaxy’s money
Money and markets
Witchspace began as Elite’s buy-low, sell-high. It has grown into a working financial system: markets that move when you trade, orders that fill while you’re away, the real Bitcoin price, a currency for nearly every star system, each run its own way, and coins and pools you can put your credits into. Every credit is in a ledger the server checks.
All of it is in-game: credits are earned by playing, never bought, and nothing can be cashed out. No pay-to-win.
At a glance
Six ways to hold your wealth
Credits
The yardstick everything is priced in. Spent, fined, or put down as a deposit on a ship.
Cargo
Bought at one station, sold at another. It sits in your hold, so you can lose it with the ship.
Bitcoin
The real coin, at the real price. It takes no hold space, and nobody can take it from you: not pirates, not the police, not losing your ship.
System currencies
A money for each system, run by its government. Some hold their value; some lose it by the week; one kind breaks.
Company stablecoins
Coins from the Big Four, worth a credit each and backed by Bitcoin, taken at any station.
Liquidity
Lend to a station’s currency pool and earn a share of its fees, with the risk that comes with it.
The markets
Every station keeps its own prices, and you move them
- Stock and price, station by station, set by what each world makes and needs. After anyone trades, prices settle back over about half an hour.
- Big trades move the price as you go. Sell a full hold and the last tonne fetches less than the first.
- The galaxy trades without you: traders haul between systems, and famines, booms and strikes move prices for days. The news travels at the speed of ships.
- Shortages pay: below 0.8× its usual stock a good is short, and stations post orders for it.
- Danger pays too: a premium of 45% at anarchies, 32% at feudal worlds, 16% at multi-government worlds and 7% at dictatorships.
- Limits: whatever anyone does, a price stays between half and two and a half times its normal level.
Limit orders
- Name your price at a station. Your credits or goods are held until it fills or you cancel. Orders fill in parts, as the market reaches your price, so a big order can’t flatten a market.
- Or send one to a station up to 25 light years away. The broker takes 2%, and the order arrives after the news delay: hours, for somewhere far off.
Bitcoin
The real coin, in the game
- The live price, relayed from the real market, the same at every station. A credit is a US dollar, so the number on screen is the real one.
- Counted in satoshis, with a 0.1% fee to buy or sell, like a real exchange.
- Limit orders fill while you’re away, against the real price. Your ship’s log tells you when one does.
- The safe place for your savings: no hold space, and it survives anything that happens to your ship. In-game only: it can’t be bought or withdrawn for real money.
System currencies
Every system’s money, run its own way
Every system but the anarchies issues its own money, named for the system. Its government decides how it behaves. Here is the nearest of each kind to Lave, where every commander starts, at today’s rate.
| System | Its money | How it’s run | Per credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| LeestiCorporate State · 3.6 LY from Lave | Leestix LST |
Stablecoin, backed by reservesPegged 1:1 to the credit, backed by reserves the system publishes, partly in Bitcoin. Safe while the reserves cover every coin; taken at any station. | 1.002 |
| OrerveFeudal · 6.8 LY from Lave | Orerveth OAH |
Algorithmic stablecoinPegged to the credit by an algorithm that mints or burns to hold the peg, with no reserves behind it. Taken at any station, while it holds. When it breaks, it spirals, and re-pegs lower: the loss stays. | 0.998 |
| IsinorConfederacy · 11.2 LY from Lave | Isinorar IAE |
Runs on BitcoinFixed supply, and reckoned in Bitcoin: it rises and falls with the real Bitcoin price, and gains as the economy grows. | 0.891 |
| OresquMulti-Government · 8.8 LY from Lave | Oresqa OAG |
Basket of neighboursTied to a basket of its neighbours’ money: smooth, but it drags when they do. | 3.321 |
| DisoDemocracy · 3.6 LY from Lave | Disum DSM |
Managed inflationA central bank lets it lose about two per cent a month, steadily. Fine to spend, poor to save. | 153 |
| RelaesCommunist · 10.4 LY from Lave | Relaesel RLS |
Official rateThe state fixes the rate, and limits how much each visitor may change. | 0.850 |
| LaveDictatorship | Lavon LVN |
Printed to orderThe government prints what it spends, faster in a crisis. Spend it, don’t save it. | 0.686 |
- Crises leave scars. When a peg breaks or the presses run, a money recovers over a few days, but only partly. Buying the bottom is a bet, not a sure thing.
- Each station has a pool for its own money: a big swap moves the rate against you (a 0.3% fee), and the rate drifts back to fair over about an hour.
- Stablecoins are your way out: reserve-backed and algorithmic money is taken at any station, at its rate, so when a currency fails you can still get to credits.
- Communist states let each visitor change only 2,000 Cr a visit.
Company coins and pools
Put your credits to work
Company stablecoins
Hexon Holdings, Vorg Industries, Carriers’ Mutual and Wexley-Yorozu each issue a coin. Mint one for a credit (less 0.3%), redeem it at any station. Each is backed by Bitcoin locked up at 150% of the coins’ value, like DAI, so it holds at one credit unless Bitcoin falls by a third. Below that, a coin is worth what its collateral is.
Providing liquidity
Put credits and the same value of a system’s money into its station’s pool, and earn a share of the fees: 8% plus 30% ÷ √population a year, so smaller stations pay more (about 20% to 42% in galaxy one). If the rate moves you come out holding more of whichever side fell: impermanent loss, shown honestly in your Money tab. Withdraw any time.
Honest money
Every credit is accounted for
- A ledger of every credit: every sale, buy, fill, swap, deposit and fee, each entry chained to the one before, so none can be changed or removed without it showing.
- The server replays it whenever your save is uploaded: the chain must be unbroken and add up, every sale must be within the good’s price limits, rare goods can’t appear from nowhere, and swaps can only spend what you had.
- An edited save is spotted, by its checksum. A flagged account can still play, but it can’t be offered a numbered edition.
Spending it
What it’s all for
- Spec a ship and put down a tenth, refundable until she’s ready, on the configurator or at any shipyard. Collect her and pay the balance, less a trade-in for your old ship.
- The numbered editions are by invitation, offered to Witchspace contributors: the Witch-fire (100 built) and the Dark Edition (50 built). Anyone can name one in the configurator and share her.
- Repaint her at any yard, or fit her out at any station.
Want every number? How the economy works is the full record, kept up to date as it changes. The thinking behind it is in system currencies, economy and exchanges and markets and trade.