Bitcoin Forum

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Need some more BTC price volatility?  It looks like Wall Street is happy to oblige!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-06/skynet-almost-sentient-hfts-start-trading-bitcoin

Hmm, robot vs. robot trading a synthetic currency?  This may be fun to watch.

yeah, just more thievery from wall st.

And I thought arbitrage was hard now. Looks like 1 full second is going to be an eternity soon.

Heh.  Sub-second trading with opportunities to settle only at unpredictable intervals when the blocks come out?  

Dang, I need to cook some popcorn!  This is going to be fun to watch!

Will we know when this begins…

they fail.

because exchange apply tax ... and bitcoin network apply tax.

 ;D sorry, folks.

no shadow trading in nanoseconds here ...  ::)

Even if you put those taxes into the equation, trading with cryptocurrencies is way better (and more fun) than with the same old ass assets.

that, it's true ... but it's not cheap  :D and traders don't love to pay tax for "every transaction".
if yes, financial crisis will be solve from decade now.  ::)

Amazing:
I have never experienced a shortage of buyers nor sellers. Did anyone, or am I playing too small?

They would probably negotiate a deal with exchanges.
And the transaction fee is really negligible when you are dealing with large amounts. I presume they won't be dealing with dust.  :P

well yes for wall street bitcoin liquidity is on the small side (though its marketcap of in the billions is nothing to be sneezed at, even for wall street)

There is nothing inherent to HFT that would cause higher volatility.  Increased volume in general may cause higher volatility in the short run, and lower volatility once the volume stabilizes.

What it takes to get really stupid volatility is  two or more robots, all trying to be faster than the others and programmed in a way that, taken together, generates positive feedback. 

You see smaller versions of this on Amazon sometimes.  A while back two different people came out with 'how to write a compiler' books, and unbeknownst to each other, they both used dynamic-pricing bots.  One guy had one that kept setting his price $4 below the other guy's, and the other guy had one that kept setting his price $6 over the first guy's.  Before the end of the first day, they were (both) priced a bit over US$14000.   :D  Not generating many sales at that price, but hey, at that price a few would be enough!

Anyway, the guys with the robot-traders fiddle their algorithms six times a day, always trying to outguess each other, and they like to buy as soon as something shows an uptick - which drives the price up so others buy because, hey, uptick, etc.  Same thing with selling "at the top" -- if everybody does it, it creates the crash that defines what went before as the "top."  They've gotten some experience with what's likely to cause explosions and gotten better at not doing that, but multi-bot interactions with dozens or hundreds of bots will usually contain at least a few sets that generate positive feedback.  Depending on how much money the bots in those sets control, you still get things going boom - or crash - every so often. 

I don't think just the big players' involvement will stablize the price. But it is a good beginning， which will bring more big finincial institution in WS or anywhere, or individual traders to come to this market. Until then no big players can easily control the price.

Willie bot sent us over 1k. 2 major bots might be the "moon" everyone is hoping for. I would rather have slow steady growth than crazy boom and bust periods but it should be fun for traders.

yes, if a doofus like Karepeles can set up some bots to manipulate the price, these big players will be able to do whatever they like. don't think they don't already, where ever they spot an opportunity. At least we might see another bubble ATH soon. that would be nice.

Still waiting for a single trade of any frequency on Silbert's OTC market. This stuff is always exciting until it isn't...

http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GBTC/quote

Btc has been volatile today. But more volatility is always welcome :D i wonder if this will cause the markets to be more volatile...

I will be at dawn patrol when the waves start firing, dude.

I think that kind of situation would really only happen if the market was so thin that a few bots were the majority of volume.  Algorithmic trading makes up the majority of many markets nowadays, but there are enough players and large enough volume that volatility changes are negligible.  The price action in the forex world today is indistinguishable from that of a decade ago, despite the proliferation of HFT.

HFT is fake

really your money just gets stolen

What it seems to be more about is the creation of market makers for bitcoin who are willing to both buy and sell it at all times.  This is a pretty key feature of large liquid markets.

I'm not excited about the high frequency trading part - imagine bots on steroids - but overall I think more liquidity and acceptance of bitcoin is a good thing.

We repeat this all the time but is that what we really need?

I mean BTC transactions and volumes are going up but we seem to be always stuck into a sort of "limbo".