Bitcoin Forum

I just added the ability to add buy and sell orders to the mtgox Dark Pool.

The dark pool allows you to buy or sell large quantities of BTC without moving the market.
You can mark any buy or sell order with a value over $1000 as being in the dark pool.

Orders in the dark pool don't show up on the order book.

More info here: http://mtgox.com/support/darkPool

interesting... too bad for all the technical analysts out there, though...

are you sure it's a good idea to hide parts of the order book?

Do the real world have dark pools too?

hey, mtgox is real! i saw it with my own eyes! :)

good question though. not sure if the major markets support this feature explicitly, but i'm pretty sure that if you have a large order and place it with a real broker, they can keep it quiet and negotiate with other incoming large orders, keeping it off the official electronic order book.

alternatively, people can use bots to 'gradually' put out their large order out to the market. e.g., you want to sell 100k shares, you keep putting in orders for 5k, and waiting for people to take them, then place the next, etc.

Sure do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pool

Though nanotube makes a good point. They usually act as alternatives to the exchanges, rather than being a part of them as with mtgox.

it is another very good way to diversify trading options.

... And like for other financial markets, Technical analysis will remain fully valuable, because we analyse price movements in the first place.

Watching to see if this takes some orders from the books, there has been a steady $55k on the offer up to 0.47

I will be looking for trades at prices w/o a bid or offer, writing it already for my site.

Most of the exchanges I deal with call these "block trades".  There are requirements to report the block trade to the exchange within a certain amount of time of the transaction ranging from 10 minutes to 24 hours.  The exchange then broadcasts a message that a block trade has occurred with quantity and price details.  Such a facility maintains transparency of the exchange while still allowing large orders time to breathe.  So will mtgox report dark pool trade details, or will they forever be a mystery?

I'll still report that the trades happen.

So if I am understanding this correctly this is the same as writing a trading bot that watches to see if there is a certain size bid at a certain price and only then issues the offer?

Please confirm my suspicions about a dark pool order:

current market is .27 bid offered at .28, but trading is thin, only $500 on each side at those prices.

I want to buy 17,000 coins at .29 (~$5000), and enter it dark. I select it to be filled by 'dark pool' only in its entirety. Once there are 17,000 coins offered at .29 or under, I am filled at their offer prices (i may get 3000 @.275, 1500 @.278, 2500@.2800 and 10000@ 0.29). Correct?

Are you the only one who gets to see dark orders? There is a lot of edge in knowing large orders at prices away from the market.

> So if I am understanding this correctly this is the same as writing a trading bot that watches to see if there is a certain size bid at a certain price and only then issues the offer?
Well not exactly since the other bid isn't displayed either. It is just asks and bids that don't show up on the order book.


TTBit: No if you select dark pool only, you will only get filled from the dark pool. So your bid wont get filled until some one else places an ask on the dark pool that crosses yours.
Right no one can see the dark pool orders.

what TTBit has described is dark pool.  what mtgox is using is a block trade facility. 

mpkomara: If you select "dark pool and normal" it works more like what TTbit said since it will also fill against the normal orders.
"Dark pool only" will also fill if there is a single normal order that is large enough.

Is an order publicly visible if someone selects "dark pool and normal"?

> Is an order publicly visible if someone selects "dark pool and normal"?
Nope

manipulating

candoo be boosting that post count!

I am getting 404 Error on that link you mentioned.

FYI:

Original post creation: 25 November 2010, 05:49:05