Bitcoin Forum

EDIT April 11: They finally did it! They finally but in a market cool down halt to trading to alleviate the lag garbage!

EDIT 2: I'd like to state that when I originally wrote this, I meant temporary, as it, 10-15 minutes max to sort out the lag and then let trading resume. I don't think turning off trading for 12 hours in beneficial. It seems Gox bad communication is an issue here as they have stated they are upgrading their system today, yet also call it a market cool down. So which is it?

EDIT 3: April 13. The brief cooldown killed the 50 minute lag in about 10 or so minutes, exactly what I was hoping for. I think this is a very good temporary solution to deal with the lag problem until they overhaul their trading engine and entire system.

This is irresponsible. To allow your service to get this gummed up and full of this much panic inducing lag is completely unacceptable and counter productive for Gox's own business and BTC as a whole. When this lag gets this bad its time to take off the pressure, let the shitty ass lag sort itself out and resume later. Seriously lame gox.

Agreed, they should at least stop accepting new orders until the order processing engine catches up

Aren't they making more money than ever?

What's it have to do with Gox? Other exchanges are ~$200

Gox leads the market with like 75% of all trade. All exchanges follow gox. Common knowledge.

It has to do with Gox because they are unable to keep a website running.

Well since I've seen other exchanges leading Gox more than Gox lead other exchanges, I would challenge that assertion.

I am sure they'd upgrade their systems if they knew in advance that it would be this much traffic. As it is, they're working on a new trading engine.

if mtgox halts now

it will be te final blow to kill themselves

 :D
I don't know how you have such a high post count and still believe in Gox. I was sure they would upgrade their systems a year ago.

I fully agree, shut that shit down and wait until the new trading interface is ready.

What a disgrace.

Exactly. The lag is not causing this drop.....the drop is causing the lag.

Bitstamp seems to be having issues too - at least their order book was crossed for a while there.

Sent them a tweet a couple of hours ago recommending what OP is saying - DDOS attack (it's not lag caused by trading) = Take the engine offline to protect morons from themselves. "Mtgox trading engine lag: 2065.03s"

Whether Gox should stop trading is not even that relevant. People should stop using Gox. That's really all there is to it. There are alternatives out there, use them.

HELLLLLNO!!

I've been buying up so many coins, I hope it goes under 100, if so I'm going all in.

36 minutes of lag. This if truly idiotic and very angering. A sell off is one thing. And endless lag induced insanity is completely unacceptable. 36 minutes now!!!

+1

I agree, BOYCOTT GOX! Theyre obviously manipulating the market under the guise of lag, to make immense profits. This shits getting to frequent.

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." - Robert J. Hanlon

The lag that starts begins a paradox like fear cycle that can keep building and building.

yep they follow gox, if you ever see an exchange that gox follows it was just coincedence back to gox in the lead

Its 2.45 AM in japan,the hamsters at gox are sleeping,someone wake that french prick of Mark and tell him to fix his Shitty engine before we all get screwed cause of his incompetence

For all I can tell, they *have* halted trading. Or maybe it's just the lag that has ground things to a halt. Either way, all I see is a lot of sites creaking under the pressure.

this has been going on for weeks like clockwork, its not difficult to profit from it, I for one am glad they dont stop the trading

They did it,  they've halted traded to let the lag subside. It is the only sane option at the moment if their systems can't handle it.

From MtGoxs website.  Its outright price manipulation; if the price is going to fall, let it fall.

It's not just manipulation, it's boneheaded manipulation.

BTC transfers are fast. Fiat transfers are slow, and MTGOX-USD codes can't be created anymore.

So people's dry powder is locked up on a frozen exchange, but cashing out their BTC is as simple as waiting for the transfer to a secondary exchange of their choice.

If they were trying to prop up the price, they picked a pretty awful way to do it!

This is how NYSE & Nasdaq do it (trading curbs, circuit breakers). Interesting that FOREX currencies don't halt. If we had drifted below yesterdays low today, we would've had another major sell-off (still could). So they halted it before it went below major psychological support because they would have lagged out anyways. We'll probably see the bot bids try to fiercely keep it up when it starts trading tonight. I'll be curious to see how they avoid a lag with the kind of volume that will coming into this....

With NYSE and Nasdaq, if they close down you have to go over-the-counter, and more importantly you keep control of both relevant assets so you can still make your trades.

If I wanted to sell right now with the coins I have on Mt. Gox, I could do it by going to another exchange.

If I wanted to buy right now with the fiat I have on Mt. Gox, I can't do it because my money can't leave Mt. Gox in any reasonable amount of time.

That's the fundamental difference, to me.

Yes, I agree with that. I think they were more worried about losing their entire business model if Bitcoin took another major dive  and then they lagged out again.

They actually picked the worst possible moment to do it. After huge downward volume it had petered out for a long while and started to get some decent buying volume and an earnest climb up. And then bam freeze the market looking like it is on the verge of a crash. I also only think halting the trading should be temporary, like minutes, 10-15 minutes to kill lag and then let trading continue. 12 hours is a whole different ballgame.

Circuit breakers only work when an asset is only traded on that individual exchange i.e. all trading halts and people pause for thought, in case it was sparked by an error.

In the case of assets traded on multiple exchanges or OTC there can be no halt in trading, it just carries on trading elsewhere and people on one exchange watch powerlessly.

Anyone asking for a single exchange to halt trading a multi-exchange traded asset (ie gold/forex/bitcoin) is not thinking it through.

Good points. But you also must realize that ADRs are traded on multiple exchanges as well. So when the NYSE/Nasdaq shut down, many stocks are trading on other exchanges. And....ADRs have different trading hours anyways, so they trade sort of independently.

Volume on Gox makes it an almost defacto single exchange.

Bye Mt. Gox and thanks for all the fish but we are not friends anymore.  New exchange here I come.

But yes, FOREX doesn't have circuit breakers for obvious reasons.

Are you a former futures/commodities/FOREX trader? I know the space.

I worked for one of the biggest Wall Street firms and others. I don't want to name markets or firms, but I did deals in FX/equity/rate derivatives and others.

This.
If you want something decentralized properly you have to decentralize it yourself.

I still have many friends who work for the usual suspects on Wall Street. I am now working in an offshore financial center. I have experience in managed futures, equities, forex, private equity. I am not a professional trader, although I dabble in equities.

I agree, they really shouldn't have circuit breakers. I was beginning to think that this lag was a half-hearted attempt at trading curbs during sell-offs. No, I think they simply have a very bad platform that gets jammed up by bot trades.....probably much less nefarious than I had originally thought.

My interest in BTC is that it is non-correlated (if ever anything was). The systematic risk makes it a very tough sell.....a non-starter really. The liquidity isn't quite there yet but I guess that will come. They really need infrastructure......separate the exchange and the brokerages IMO. Or, get a real firm involved.

The brief cooldown killed the 50 minute lag in about 10 or so minutes, exactly what I was hoping for, a brief cooldown is completely acceptable to me. This should have happened when it was at 10-15 minutes of lag though, not 45-50 after three hours of hell. I think this is a very good temporary solution to deal with the lag problem until they overhaul their trading engine and entire system. It isn't a permanent solution... lets see what happens when trading begins once more... HAHA.

I suppose, the only helpfull to prevent a nose-diving of BTC price during a lag is to disable market order, leaving only limit order.