The people behind this are a real (if silly) student organization at UChicago and Northwestern campaigning for the legalization of onion futures trading. Sometimes they will aggressively hand out free onions to passerby on campus. It's quite entertaining.

They have a website also: https://onionfutures.org

For those who don’t know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act

(which also banned box office receipt futures)

A fun thing is to go on FRED and make a graph with prices from onions and, say, corn to see the differences in volatility.

> FAQ

>Is this legal?

>Yes, to the best of our knowledge. 7 U.S. Code § 13-1 prohibits "contract[s] for the sale of [...] onions for future delivery [...] on or subject to the rules of any board of trade in the United States." The San Francisco Onion Futures Company is not a board of trade, defined as an "organized exchange or other trading facility". We sell contracts privately to individual buyers, and do not operate any exchange or secondary market.

Performance art against that law?

Also November onions are an absolute steal compared to the adjacent months!

Since this may be a legal gray area, they should host it on a Tor onion site.

US Department of Agriculture publishes a national potato & onion report (issued daily!):

https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/fvdidnop.pdf

Readers may wish to skip ahead to page 4, where onions are discussed.

For those unfamiliar, there's an excellent Planet Money episode on how trading onion futures got banned in the 50s.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/epis...

Are these contract prices really "per onion"? Or are they actually per pound or per kg? Up to $9.39 seems very expensive if it's really the price for a single onion.

I thought maybe they're some sort of special exotic onion variety, but I don't see anything to suggest that.

Okay folks, I've got one onion for November. Charged $3.74, yours for $4.50! But hurry! By November it could be worth $9!

I am serious, reply here, I'll sell you my onion contract for $4.50. Who's buying?

Why was the law against onion futures passed in the first place? Couldn’t the same scheme be done with garlic, or sweet potatoes, or turnips or something?

In an onion related note... is the "I sell onions on the internet" guy still around? I believe he was selling Vidalia onions.

It's an onion Michael, how much could it cost, $9.41?

Looking forward to my 2 onions in November! Anyone have some good recipes?

These onion prices are quite high! The novelty probably drives up prices. Too bad there isn’t a liquid market for onions

I see a future for a bananacoin collab

We as a society seem to have done OK without onion futures for these past 70 years, makes you wonder what other futures trading we could do without.

This is a rip-off. I live in NYC and these prices are 2x to 4x what I pay for organic onions.

I can't short onion futures? Why? Buying the nov. Contract and selling the dec. Would net a >100% return on a month (minus the freezing cost of the onions)

> Please note that although we will do our best to contact you and deliver your onions, no refunds are offered even in the case of a failed delivery.

How many times have you failed delivery where you have been able to establish contact with contract owner and they want their onions? Curious

Is the price of onions really that seasonal? Shall have to check

I can't wait until someone tries to corner the market, holds a shitton of future onions, the onions go bad and the market implodes showing that future contracts on perishable items is generally a bad idea.

Hard to take this seriously when it just lists “onion” as the commodity. The onion we extract from the ground is not the same everywhere. Onion can be either light or heavy based on the size and density. Light onion will roll more easily than thicker, "heavy" onion.

The sulfur content also affects the onion quality and price: “sweet” onion has low sulfur content, “sour” onion has high. Sweet onion can be used much more easily than sour onion, which requires more culinary processing to extract the sulfur compounds that make you smelly and your eyes water.

Onion has been shown to have a negative impact on climate, especially on air quality with people in confined spaces after lunch, but despite this it continues to be a valuable resource that is processed into many everyday foodstuffs: white, yellow, red, salad, and for specialist applications the highly refined shallot and pearl compounds as well.

Alas it seems likely that geopolitical upheaval will mean onion trading at ever higher prices. Brest Roscoff Intermediate (light, sweet onion) is trading over $8 a bunch (yes, crude onion is traded in weird units!) since the war began.

There’s also a bright future for synthetic. environmentally friendlier onion! Hydroponically grown scallions — so called “green” onion — have some interesting applications in the aerospace industry e.g. in-flight sandwiches and salads.

Someone call Peter Askew, the vidalia onion guy!

www.onions.com

The Future's Bright. The Future's Onion.

How many onions / lbs does a contract represent?

These are not forwards, not futures.

I get that it’s a joke, since onion futures are illegal. But isn’t trading all futures regulated?

These are 1 onion contracts? Outrageous!

> Let the free market reign supreme.

Tsk. There is no free market.

Someone at the onion needs to see this.

This is very good.

>and for hedging risks associated with weather and market fluctuations

Why don't existing futures cover this? Are onions unique in how sturdy they are? You can use derivatives of the weather itself even.

Can we tokenize this or get some prediction markets going on Polymarket?

I'll take 2000 please.

[dead]

Maybe I open a tor store for people trading these onions with one another?

hell yeah, based

> How are prices determined? ... using a proprietary algorithm.

How is this article HN newsworthy?