Bitcoin Forum

i think the attack on Bitcoinica has begun. 

this type of volatility can't be good for Zhou.  at least not for his customers who are being liquidated.  no players; no money.

why hasn't he come forward to tell us what's going on?

What 'attack' ?

what a joke..

I think, that Z should provide clear indication of connection problems (date, time and resolution status)

Might be he should implement service level agreements with mtgox,
automated link testing on different levels of network model,
and so on

Nothing is going on. The system handles everything perfectly (including your spamming orders).

The asterisk is due to Mt. Gox API unstability, if you place order it still should get executed in 15 seconds AT MOST.

I wonder why anyone would associate market volatility with Bitcoinica system instability. Why can't we build something better than Mt. Gox?

It's intermittent. Usually it doesn't last more than 15 seconds. You can just place orders and you will be fine.

As if anything will come of it.


Speak of the devil. Now burn GOX!

http://psalmsinpurgatory.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/pitchfork-mob1.jpg

i put forward a hypothesis a few weeks ago about how some big players would try to exploit the deficiencies in the Bitcoinica model which i think have become more apparent today.

if you can create a lot of volatility and * events, i think it will cost Zhou money in the end since any acct losses cost him money.  for sure, it is costing his customers who are now starting to walk away. 

no players; no fees.

The * has been on one side or the other EASILY 66% of the time over the LAST 2 DAYS.

We already done that - we use DarkExchange on I2P

That's because of reserve problems, not connection.

We're considering getting short-term loans when this is happening, but it will take a while before we solve the compliance problems.

Ah gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

Makes sense...force liquidations -> no new players =]

I would seriously hope they are.

Anyone leaving more than a bit of lunch money on Bitcoinica after all that’s happened is either filthy rich or insane.

I think I can now agree with you that Bitcoinica has harmed Bitcoin as a whole, and is continuing to do so. It’s turning this thing into a pyramid scheme.

I mean, OP assumes that Bitcoinica is a buggy system like Mt. Gox. And it's entirely possible that Bitcoinica hasn't been affected in this crash at all, systematically and financially.

then why do u need the short term loans?

Our biggest clients who trade on 2.5:1 leverage have been fine.

We will re-consider our 5:1 and 10:1 options soon.

i would hope so; for the sake of the community.

Because we don't have reserves for some heavily leveraged users. We are absolutely solvent throughout the crash, and we made some small profits from the huge volume.

This has nothing to do with the crash. We had the asterisk since two days ago.

When Bitcoin is at least $1000, I think 50:1 will be possible.

Why do you have reserve problems?  Why are you not making tons of money?

Hearing plans for loans is good but they shouldnt be necessary.

I'd rather the 5:1 option remain as I have been using it and have been very conservative with it and it has served me well. If people can't handle the leverage, then they deserve the loss. Don't penalize those (like me) who use leverage properly to take advantage of big dips or peaks and leave enough reserve to cover. 10:1 is crazy, but 5:1 is perfect for many.

-Mike

so some of your heavily leveraged longs couldn't sell during the crash and some of your heavily leveraged shorts couldn't cover during the ramp?

If Bitcoin is $1000, it will be hard to "shake" things in terms of percentage. The volatility could be even less than gold's.

Seriously plug it into other exchanges, do it! MtGox architecture can't handle itself at all, it always craps out when things get volatile!

Ya think? Best post I've seen in a busy day. I made $0.03 today getting out of the way, good for me  :)

It's P2P client - https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange

Your memory stays two weeks ago. Anyone with a position can close it or reduce it. There's no such state as "all trading stops" on Bitcoinica, except when the site is down.

All the asterisks recently made me think Bitcoinica might be getting slammed back and forth a bit on limited reserves, perhaps pressuring its ability to hedge as well. Reducing the leverage available would lessen that effect, wouldn't it?

Also, just to hear it from you, was there a connectivity issue involved at some point in the last day or two? If so did that ever result in liquidations or not?

Perhaps your could start a thread with a sticky that addresses all these questions that seem to be around? I imagine you are getting a lot of this right now.