Hahaha sounds like something I need to read then. Thanks!

Thanks for this, I just now read it and I've finally wrapped my head around it a little better. Made myself a spreadsheet in excel that helped me visualize it all.

A few more questions:

This is probably really stupid but I would rather know for sure than not. So the orderbook displays currently open orders, so "Buy" orders listed there are open buy's from other users, to whom I could sell contracts? Or do I have it backwards.

Also, so given that a Buy order is listed there, ex. 250 contracts with a price of 660. Given that I understand my above question correctly and that is in fact an order I can sell to, would I have to sell 250 contracts at 660 to match up with that one? Or if I only sold 150, would it execute for me and only partially execute the other users order, leaving him or her with an open order of 100 contracts at 660?

Thanks in advance guys!

I'm trying to wrap my head around how the $10 chunks work and how the futures execute... Probably a noob question but I'm lost and can't seem to figure it out no matter how much reading I do.

So say I'm selling a contract for 1BTC for $700, instrument 6.14. So if I'm correct, on June 14, 2014, the buyer of my contract will not pay me USD (since everything is in BTC), but in BTC. Correct?

Now, here is where I am lost. On the settlement date, with a normal future, I would turn over 1BTC in exchange for $700USD, even if the value of 1BTC is now only $600. In this scenario, the buyer has lost $100, in the form of overpaying for 1BTC. But since all contracts are settled in BTC on ICBIT, would the buyer pay me in $700 worth of BTC, at current market value? In my proposed scenario, ~1.166BTC?

On the flipside, if the market value of 1BTC goes up to $800, what happens? Do I still deliver 1BTC in exchange for only $700 worth of BTC, in this case ~0.875BTC?

How do the chunks play a role? The whole setup is confusing me and I really would like to understand so I can trade BTC futures.

Much thanks in advance for any help you guys can give.

So here's the issue: I'm trying to learn to mine LTC/altcoins (never really delved into mining, but I spent some time a year ago or so trading BTC, decided I wanted to learn more aspects of cryptocurrencies). I've acquired a friend's old gaming PC for the job, and heres what I've got, that I know of:

AMD Radeon 6800-series (I was told it's a 6870 - is there any way to check between -50 or -70 without prying open the case?)
Windows 7 32-bit
cgminer 3.7.2
Catalyst driver 12.8
SDK 2.5

I got the rig running on a basic setup before I messed with the drivers. There was no SDK and I believe the Catalyst was 14.1 or maybe upper 13.x's. Computer ran super slow and I made like $1USD in a week. Not exactly ideal.

I've spent all day googling, reading forums, etc, and I've cleared off all the Catalyst software using ATIman Uninstaller. Did a clean install of 12.8 and SDK 2.5, and my basic .bat file runs, but in cgminer I get the error:

"Error -1001: clGetPlatformIDs failed "

Followed by

"clDevicesNum returned error, no GPUs usable"

My basic .bat file (which worked before) is:

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
cgminer --scrypt -I 19 --thread-concurrency 6720 -o stratum+tcp://us-east.multipool.us:7777 - u thetedderbear.tedbear1 -p x

What am I doing wrong?

After much googling, I'm unsure if I'm using the right driver, if I have the wrong SDK, or if I even need the SDK?

I'm very much a noob to mining, and a noob to coding and delving deep into computer systems in general. Any help is greatly appreciated, and please be detailed, so I know what you're talking about lol.

Thanks guys!