Bitcoin Forum

So, a massive GoxLoop is going on.

What is GoxLoop?
Gox rewinds the orderbook periodically (6 times as of now) during a massive sell event, and replays the trades that happened in the duration of one loop. Any orders placed during the GoxLoop cannot be cancelled. Any orders placed during the GoxLoop will most likely go through after Gox decides to end the GoxLoop.

ITT: Theories, speculations, as to motivations for GoxLoop.

My theories:

- Massive market sell triggered GoxLoop so Gox can sell elsewhere while the price is still high
- Gox lets the loop run for as long as it takes them to move BTC elsewhere (be it another exchange, or w/e) for their profit.

Legal complications?

Please also discuss whether or not this is legal, and if Gox operators could suffer legal consequences, even though this market is unregulated. Would it be legal in the EU/US to do this?

https://i.imgur.com/m93f60E.png

They should have faced some jail already. They are so incompetent it's illegal.

I think if they acted at least negligently which caused the price to go down artificially they'd be subject to a lawsuit, wouldn't they?  This is just speculation.

Big dump scares the crap out of more sellers. Now more poop.

It's sucks either way.
I expected the price to drop much more.

This looks like currency control... not good for bitcoin. Exchanges can easily manipulate the market with rollback loops.

one more reason why btc is not ready yet for the prime time.

It's a long way...
There are only a few bitcoin traders and the exchanges work like shit during high user traffic!
No chance to see 1 billion bitcoin users in the near future with such crappy exchanges.

Turn off trading during a crash -> looks really unprofessional.

i looking at this looping on btccharts, this is some funny shit going on. can you imagine if this started happening on nasdaq or nyse, lmfao

Anyone willing to lobby against MtGox, with me?

One more reason why GOX has never been ready for prime time. I admit I've still been using them but when this correction is over I'm switching.

Alright I looked further into this and I'm convinced of goxloop manipulation. The sell orders are huge with full red We should be below $800 already. Very interesting and clear manipulation!

"funny shit" happens an nasdaq, nyse et al all the time, they hide it in plain sight.

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/weird-stuff-in-high-frequency-markets.html

tried to cancel a buy order at 825 b/c i think it will go lower and every time i refresh my screen it appears as if i didn't cancel it. it hasn't hit 825 yet but goes to 829 and back to 877. And then periodically shows 502 bad gateway, could this be a hack attempt?  ....either way this is Lame.

The problem is:

The same shit happend yesterday!
The price dropped and I was unable to cancel my buy order @ 680 euros...
Same loop.

Eithere there was an attacker testing his method or GOX itself manipulates the market.

i need to get that buy order in at $1 before it goes back up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup this is just either plain manipulation on Gox's part or they do actually halt trades when the ongoing balance exceeds their hotwallet balance.  Either way, like I always tell people you can trust in Bitcoin itself but exchanges can do anything they want.  If you trade in an unregulated market then there can be no SEC violations.

This will all stop as soon as Bill Murry wins Andie McDowell's heart.

Until then, we're Goxloop'd!

not sure who is putting all these sell orders in i dont see anything on the sell side

Though, I'm sure the price will rebound (>900) just after they manage to reset.. though I'm sure a lot of people panicked and will regret it immediately, those who are scared because they market bought during this whole scenario will come out on top once everything catches up.  No worries.

I speculate that it will go down from 875 to around 830. Right now it is on wave (b), it is that 0.1BTC buy order at 840. then down again on heavy volume.

That's what i'm seeing on my platform (21:00 GMT+1). Bars data (high, low, open, close) are built with the MTGox realtime streaming data received by my service's server


http://i.snag.gy/2ubzf.jpg

If this is not proof enough i don't know what is

http://i40.tinypic.com/rs779u.jpg

Finally someone explaining the gox loop. Thank you.
Btw i can't see the loop in bitcoinwisdom although i had it in 1m.
Actually it is just now that i can see the first itteration. Probably i 'm lagging badly.

It was already explained in another thread, it's a security measure (of rather dubious quality) they put in for when price is falling too fast. This is the kind of "solution" that makes software engineers around the world scream out in agony.

It's also called market manipulation and in every regulated market strictly forbidden. Bitcoin allows anything.

The US stock and commodity exchanges break all the time.  Just google "zerohedge self help" and read some of the stories.  The major exchanges try to "hide" this kind of thing for better optics.  Bitcoin is more transparent.  

Note again that this "GoxLoop" happened around 9pm pacific time maybe a month ago.  It wasn't discussed as much because most people from the US were asleep.  Mark was on IRC (the last time this happened) and said that the loop was activated by his "security system" that goes off when someone places and huge market sell order.  The reason for his weird "security system" is to prevent a repeat of what happened several years ago when someone hacked the site and faked a market sell all the way down to zero!

Gox really needs to step up its game -- it could raise plenty of cash to fund improvements.  But this is not a conspiracy, and this is in no way unprecedented.  

How does this solve the price falling too fast?

Well, this is just going to stall the drop.  Before the bottom was 400, now the bottom could be back to single digits, because it just made bitcoin a lot less reliable.

How is this a better idea than simply halting trading?

I can't see how this would help that situation.

If it were me making a huge sell just now I'd be pretty peeved that the whole world has now been alerted to the fact.

My thoughts exactly.

It's not like the hackers could magic out the fiat without them sending it out to a bank. Just mark account transfers for manual approval over a certain limit.

It is a bandaid that Mark implemented to avoid a repeat of the hack a few years ago when someone faked a market sell all the way to zero (cleaned out the order book).  It is not designed to prevent the price from "falling too fast."  

(I am not condoning this "security system" BTW, just trying to get the facts straight.)

Gox be a goxin'!

Seems like a dumb idea to create more confusion by replaying trades instead of just giving folks a message:  "Trading temporarily halted due to a possible security issue."

it stopped

if only all manipulation was this transparent. ...pretty funny from the big picture. I dont buy the security hack explanation. Though thats a good one.

loop is over, just watching the madness right now, the chart is going all over the place  :o

Quoted. IMO, manipulation in ANY way is wrong. If it has to fall, let it fall. But if you want, just halt the trading, it is the best choice: but they can't steal if the market is closed  ;D

the loop is over..

Triple top  :D

http://i40.tinypic.com/10ofdbc.jpg

ok time to buy again  ;D

I sat there trying to cancel re-appearing orders for an hour... thankfully it did seem to stop finally, and I've been able to withdraw my bitcoins...

are we back in a loop this time $830-$890?

You withdraw your bitcoins and so do a bunch of other people who are now spooked with Gox.  Those who panic sold will later panic buy into a thinner ask wall, realizing that withdrawing via bitcoin is much faster and easier than USD.  This will drive the price UP.  

Anti-fragility at work.

Ok so the gox loop worked for the better or for worse for the price. It seems to me that it didn't had much impact considering the price of the other exchanges that weren't on a loop.

baahahahahha

this is an excellent documentary about high frequency trading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEAGdwHXfLQ

some totally unexplained flash crashes happened because these algos operate in complex systems.

Can anyone remember any loop when the price went up really fast?

This is interesting to say at least...didn't know this was possible (legality aside!)

Why anyone still uses them at this point is beyond my comprehension anyway. After the April crash, I was done.

It seemed like the price got stuck at Gox for a while and threw all the other markets into a tizzy.  Isn't part of the problem ppl can't get money and btc out of Gox?

Maybe stop using Gox?

GoxLoop from 2012,

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85687.msg1044283#msg1044283 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85687.msg1044283#msg1044283)

Yes.  Don't use gox anymore.  Done.

The precedent from the Shavers case says otherwise.  They could probably nab Karples for securities fraud, as this is something he is explicitly expected NOT to do.

I really wish, for the sake of BTC's credibility, they would not do this.  Or urgently fix whatever bug has been causing this to happen occasionally for the last year or more.

These charts get posted on zerohedge, and they scream "manipulated market" to people.  Even if there is an innocent explanation.

Yes, but why on earth would he report fake volume instead of simply halting the market?

Makes zero sense.

If this really is a security measure it only needs to be on the down-side since BTC withdrawals are instantaneous and irreversible while fiat withdrawals take at least a day (time for Mark to wake up and notice) and can sometimes be clawed back.  Blocking all BTC withdrawals from all accounts is an alternative, but that REALLY freaks people out, so I can understand why he'd be reluctant to do that.

I still think that "looping" instead of halting is completely bonkers.

I cannot understand why anyone still uses GOX.

I know many people that are pleased with all this loop thing because they think that helped the price not to collapse completely.
I don't think that it made any difference. I mean those who are going to panic they 'll panic sooner or later.

While I agree with what you say, I should point out that mtgox BTC withdraws are not instant...

It takes days sometimes (longer than fiat transfers typically take).

yeah. holy sh*t!

this is the first time i see it (goxloop), obviously something isn't right. probably a software bug on MtGox's side. they should stop being lazy and fix it.

stupid question but...
how does one fake a market sell?

it does not seem possible to me

Relevant article:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/06/bitcoin-value-loses-its-mind-as-trading-lags-on-the-mt-gox-exchange/

It's api lag, not more.