Bitcoin Forum

<end of message>

EDIT: Just as quick back up to $15.47.  Somebody is playing games.  The time stamp of this message is VERY CLOSE to when it occurred.

Back to normal it seems.

Sorry I just had to swap my money to a different exchange

Yes, but how the heck did this happen? There were large bids way above $2.99. I've been seeing strange things at Mt. Gox lately ever since they got hacked.  I miss the old Mt. Gox, back when websockets used to work, etc. :(

I think this is a bug, the same one people have already pointed out.

I just checked it seems like what happened is the order book got cleared.  I just check and it only had a few dozen orders in it

Some idiot is playing around .. trying to trigger a panic would be my guess.

Jul 2, 2011, 03:34:01   2.99000   0.10   
Jul 2, 2011, 03:33:10   2.99000   1.52
Jul 2, 2011, 03:13:02   2.99000   0.47

Yeah, you wouldn't expect the "last trade" to show as $2.99; if anything, it would be the first gobbled up with the standing bids out there.

It's a serious bug. Every buy order instantly gets sold, sometimes for only $2.99.
Is this happening to other people, or just my account?

It doesn't happen on my end.

Thanks, why me....?

Wait, so you can buy btc for as low as 3$ instantly? Have you tried selling that btc back at 15$, buying more btc, and repeating?

They are fixing it now:
Cancel trade: Matching error (BTC sold: [tid:1309577590796944] 1.500000 ฿TC at $2.99000)

Did you look at my post?  Somebody was selling small number of coins, as few as 0.10BTC at $2.99.  Your chances of intentionally buying from this creep are small and the profit of reselling at market price is small ..the largest I think sold was 1.54BTC (as far back in history as I went anyway).

If you want to kill the guy off and snag a few, put a standing buy order out for $2.99 and as many BTC as you have funds in your account  [which I don't trust leaving on that exchange for long].  He'll get sick of losing his bits and ideally MtGox fixes the last trade issue (they probably won't be aware of it for weeks knowing them) since it is almost certain that the last trade would not be for $2.99 for more than a split second with the amount of coins that was asking for $2.99 (0.10-1.54BTC when I looked).

Really?  They actually noticed?  How about the "last trade" issue?

Such a confidence inspiring operation...

I don't know if they noticed (today's bogus low price on the ticker), or saw my support ticket.
"Selling" 1.5 BTC for only $2.99 made my balance unexpectedly lower.

They noticed. In fact, jed called MagicalTux over this.

This situation is called a "crossed market" (http://faculty.bus.olemiss.edu/rvanness/Speakers/2004-2005/LockedCrossed-ver11.pdf), and it happens all the time in the real world.  But in the real world, it happens because there are multiple interconnected markets, and one market can lock or cross another. (http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/articles/14702074)  Each individual market has rules to deal with the problem.

Island (a system used by big traders to trade US stocks)  like Mt. Gox, runs entirely on limit orders. Island's solution to this problem is to reject orders which will result in a locked or crossed market. That's probably what Mt. Gox should be doing. 

There are other potential solutions, but just rejecting the limit order is probably the simplest.

Mt. Gox needs to publish their market rules.

Where have you people been all week?  These errant points have been popping up since the reopening for both high and low prices. 

Just now there is one showing 16.7. 

From what I just read, a crossed market is when there is an overlap near the market price.  This has happened briefly on Gox, and is probably being handled by some algorithm.  None of this explains the gross outliers that have been popping up for the last week. 

If the exchange accepts orders that result in a crossed market, (which Mt. Gox does), someone can briefly manipulate the market by putting in a small buy order far below the market price. That seems to be what happened here.

Mtgox is  :D