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Legality and loophole debate – Many commenters argue whether onionfutures.com sidesteps the Onion Futures Act by claiming it isn’t an “organized exchange.”
“Legal defense is basically ‘nuh uh’” – quirkot
“The San Francisco Onion Futures Company is not a board of trade… we sell contracts privately to individual buyers, and do not operate any exchange or secondary market.” – Barbing (FAQ)
“I think their point is there's no ‘peer to peer’ trading so it's not an exchange… more like a vegetables seller than a trading facility.” – riffraff -
Pricing, value, and novelty – Users repeatedly comment on the high per‑onion price, treat it as a novelty or performance art, and joke about speculation.
“What: Are you really charging $9/onion? I get upset when Safeway charges $2/lb… ” – what
“Priced to what the market can bear” – luma
“These onion prices are quite high! The novelty probably drives up prices.” – not-my-account
“Way overvalued. I’m shorting onions.” – K0balt -
Historical/cultural context – Several notes recall the 1950s onion‑corner scandal that prompted the ban and mention the student‑group origins of the project.
“Because Vincent Kosuga.” – chirau
“A guy cornered the market in the fifties, caused a scandal, they made a special exception.” – gostsamo
“The people behind this are a real (if silly) student organization at UChicago and Northwestern… sometimes they will aggressively hand out free onions to passerby on campus.” – mimorigasaka
“I'm the proprietor of onionfutures.com… we've since connected and they handle our Chicago deliveries.” – a11ce
San Francisco Onion Futures Company
📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)
🚀 Project Ideas
OnionFutures Exchange (OFX)
Summary
- A decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling onion futures contracts with escrow and cryptographic verification.
- Core value proposition: creates liquid secondary trading, eliminates counterfeit risk, and enables price discovery for onion futures.
Details
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Target Audience | Onion futures traders, novelty commodity enthusiasts, small farmers seeking hedging tools |
| Core Feature | Trustless escrow + ERC‑1155 tokenized contract key transfer with fiat on‑ramp |
| Tech Stack | React, Node.js, Polygon (Ethereum L2) smart contracts, IPFS for metadata, Stripe for fiat payments |
| Difficulty | Medium |
| Monetization | Revenue-ready: 0.5% transaction fee + optional premium verification service |
Notes
- Addresses commenters who lamented “Too bad there isn’t a liquid market for onions” and noted that “you’re able to privately resell contract keys … but onionfutures.com doesn’t facilitate it.”
- Provides on‑chain proof of ownership, mitigating fears of fake keys raised by altmanaltman (“Why can’t I just sell a fake key…”)
- Sparks discussion on HN about decentralized commodity markets and where novelty futures sit relative to exchange regulation.
OnionWatch Analytics Dashboard
Summary
- Web‑based platform that ingests daily USDA onion and vegetable price reports, visualizes trends, volatility, and correlations with commodities like corn and potatoes.
- Core value proposition: gives traders and researchers actionable data for hedging, speculation, and academic analysis.
Details
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Target Audience | Commodity traders, agricultural analysts, hobbyist investors interested in onion futures |
| Core Feature | Interactive charts, volatility comparison tool, custom alerts, CSV/API export |
| Tech Stack | Python/FastAPI backend, PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB, React + D3.js frontend, Vercel deployment |
| Difficulty | Low‑Medium |
| Monetization | Revenue-ready: Freemium with paid API access ($10/mo) and premium data export bundles |
Notes
- Directly fulfills cwal37’s suggestion to “go on FRED and make a graph with prices from onions and corn to see differences in volatility” by automating that workflow.
- Enables charcircuit’s idea of using weather data alongside onion prices for hedging strategies.
- Offers practical utility for risk management and can generate HN conversation about alternative data sources in niche markets.
FuturesLegal Compliance Toolkit
Summary
- SaaS wizard that guides creators of novelty futures (onion, garlic, sweet potatoes, etc.) through legal compliance: generates disclaimers, evaluates whether their platform constitutes an “organized exchange,” supplies KYC/AML templates, and advises on optional Tor hosting.
- Core value proposition: reduces legal uncertainty and helps innovators stay within the bounds of the Onion Futures Act and related regulations.
Details
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Target Audience | Entrepreneurs launching novelty commodity futures, student groups, indie developers |
| Core Feature | Compliance wizard + auto‑generated legal docs + hosting recommendations |
| Tech Stack | Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, AWS Lambda (serverless), DocuSign API for e‑signatures |
| Difficulty | Medium |
| Monetization | Revenue-ready: Subscription ($20/mo per project) or one‑off fee per legal package |
Notes
- Answers commenters’ concerns about legality (“Is this legal?”, “Legal defense is basically ‘nuh uh’”, and haakon’s suggestion to host on a Tor onion site) by providing clear guidance and documentation.
- Supports joegibbs’s question about extending the scheme to garlic, sweet potatoes, turnips, etc., by being commodity‑agnostic.
- Likely to stimulate HN debate on the line between novelty art projects and regulated financial instruments.