Deep Capture Forums

A year ago I entered the Deep Capture Essay Contest.

My entry was a common sense solution to the abuses of FTDs called the Open Source Real Time eXchange. OSRTX.

I registered the domain name OSTRX.com which I had offered to donate to the Deep Capture project if there was any interst. I didn't get any feedback. But I thought I'd make a final stab at it before the name expires.

The FTD problem exists because regulators created an artificial gap between the purchase and delivery of stocks. In my opinion, the solution is simple. One need simply create a new exchange that trade stocks in real time. The real time exchange eliminates the costly and corruption prone clearing process. The real time exchange would identify and transfer shares at the moment of purchase.

A real time exchange is not rocket science. It is what happens at the grocery store. The food in your cart belongs to the store up to the second you pay for the order. After you pay, the groceries are yours.

The little girl living at the end of the block set up a Real Time Exchange when she put a little cardboard cash box next to her pitcher of lemonade. I gave her a quarter and she handed me a chemical concoction resembling lemonade.

My idea was that, if Deep Capture wanted to force change, they could start on open source project to create a stock trading platform that traded stock in real time. The program simply gives a UID to each stock certificate. To trade stock, the seller must identify the UIDs of the stocks to be sold. The trade would then transfer all of the numbers to the buyer in real time. Committing the trade would transfer the UIDS along with the cash involved in the transaction.

Developing the system as an open source project would be a direct poke in the eye at the DTCC which uses black box processes.

The open source part of the process fits in perfectly with the DeepCapture cause. An open source exchange would be transparent and would greatly reduce the possibility of the exchange being captured.

The added advantage of going open source is that, if Deep Capture committed itself to making an open source real time exchange, the SlashDot community would go absolutely wild with stock market reform fever. Never underestimate the power of an activated geek.

A high profile effort to create an open source exchange would launch a full frontal assault on the black box processes of current exchange and help Deep Capture in creating a fair, transparent market.

I would love feedback on this idea and would be happy to donate OSTRX.com to Deep Capture if there was interest in this project.