I have a suggestion:
From what i understand running out of BTC on bitstamp was what lead to the cascade. How about next time this happens, and the order book moves more than 5% out of sync with bitstamp, that bfx pauses *sell orders*.
So its similar to halting trading, but *limit buy* orders are still allowed.
What will happen is the traders and bots will start to fill in the depleted order book. Eventually sell orders are restored again once the order book depth reaches some predetermined value, like say 1000 Btcs to the bitstamp price. let the sell orders trickle in and if the depth is depleted again and goes 5% out of sync with bitstamp, you once again halt *sells* and resume when the depth rebuilds enough. Meanwhile, you're also sending more BTCs to bitstamp.
This is like a circuit breaker but allows a controlled sell off. The advantage is that because its slow, forced liquidations won't cascade to zero because there will always be buyers willing to fill in with more bids when they see the bitstamp/bfx order books go out of balance. Also i think the number of forced liquidations will be reduced because they are stopped at 5% below bitstamp and only resumed when the bids fill in. eventually there will enough bids to repay lenders and stop the cascade.
The point of halting trading i think is to stop a cascade and destroying the lenders. By still allowing *buy limit orders* placed, we're still giving the lenders their money (since its coming out of the buyers).
If there aren't enough buyers then no worries, the depth never refills and trading is not resumed until the extra BTCs get to bitstamp. This system won't be any worse than the current system of halting all trades until btcs get to bitstamp... at least i don't think it's worse.
This "half-breaker" works both ways, If the opposite happens somehow, you can stop buy orders in the other direction.
Anything wrong with implementing a half-breaker?
The only difficulty i can see is that extra computing power is needed to check if the above conditions are met after every trade. After a sell occurs, check if there is still enough btc in bistamp, if not, check if the last trade pushed the price to 5% below bitstamp price, if true, STOP SELLS.
For very large sells of thousands of BTC you'll also have to break up the transaction into smaller pieces and implement the checks after each piece.
Anyway, could this idea work?
I like that idea. Some automatic breaker, with the rules published in advance, and a clear message on every page of BitFinex in such a condition. Please, everybody who still complains, take it to BitFinex email, as they themselves asked for. Or open a thread in "scam accusation", whatever. I don't want to hear it again and again for pages and pages. To everybody making suggestions here: This sounds like we really can come up with a good plan here. And, as was stated by BitFinex/Giancarlo several times, people who make good suggestions will get some goodies. They are listening to us, lets make the platform go out stronger from this! Ente |
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Does that mean liquidations have been reversed and lenders money is safe?
My margin call limit sure as hell was above 100$. I was not liquidated. I, for one, am a happy fckr. Ente |
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The trading has been restored now.
We halted it because forced liquidations of leveraged positions quickly depleted our big reserves of BTC on Bitstamp and when this happens the price tends to become too volatile.
We had to wait for the coins become available on Bitstamp before we resumed trading.
Thanks a lot for your understanding
Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team
Aah, you were talking about BTC deposits, not USD deposits! Now this sounds much, much better! Thank you for getting stuff up and running again. Ente |
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Now this is really interesting! Did you watch this on the charts yourself? I only noticed something was up when the red candle was already quite impressive. Sure enough, /r/bitcoin showed the answer by then. I was in #mtgox at the time, waiting for the release to be announced. We were all wondering why MtGox was rallying down and at around 620 and falling and then came the release. I'm sure quite a few others noticed and can verify this. Maybe it was on their webpage for some minutes before they announced it (in IRC)? Or some MtGox insider got rich on this move. Ente |
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Can you hilarious people stop ruining this thread?
I can see how someone would be dead serious with such an offer. I was thinking of buying some at 50% myself, but now believe even this is too risky at this point. I'll sit back and watch the whole trainwreck to work out in slowmotion. Ente |
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WRONG. And that's interesting, isn't it? The amazing red candle started a full 10 minutes before the release was available on their website. That's when MtGox started rallying down and Bitstamp had that spike to 710 and we were all wondering why they were going in opposite directions. _Then_ came the release. Now this is really interesting! Did you watch this on the charts yourself? I only noticed something was up when the red candle was already quite impressive. Sure enough, /r/bitcoin showed the answer by then. I warned people of MtGox for some time now. As of today, I can say I hate them. For all their dick moves. For not just dieing quietly, but pulling all exchange rates with them too (as of today). All right, that's more the fault of the 'weak hands' than theirs I guess. Ente |
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i am posting buy orders higher than 100$ but bitfinex isn't getting updated.
whats wrong?
Trading is halted, as stated above. Will be active in some minutes again. Hm, was the flash crash at Bitstamp caused by Bitfinex liquidations or is it a coincidence?
Here's your cause for all this: https://www.mtgox.com/press_release_20140210.htmltl,dr: We have discussed this solution with the Bitcoin core developers and will allow Bitcoin withdrawals again once it has been approved and standardized. Ente whats the publish date of that document? thx Why, today! When exactly? A few seconds before that amazing red candle on all charts! :-) Ente |
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Aww man, I wish I had put up some buy orders at, say, 110$.. :-)
I'll put up some staggered orders all the way down to 1$. For the next time. For providing liquidity, and softening the fall of people being liquidated ;-)
Joking aside, this would really help. With more BitFinex-internal orderbook-depth we wouldn't depend as much on BitStamp and the API link to them.
Ente
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Hm, was the flash crash at Bitstamp caused by Bitfinex liquidations or is it a coincidence?
Here's your cause for all this: https://www.mtgox.com/press_release_20140210.htmltl,dr: We have discussed this solution with the Bitcoin core developers and will allow Bitcoin withdrawals again once it has been approved and standardized. Ente |
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Flash crash on BFX to 100 plus trading halt.
..and this is why margin trading with leverage is a bad idea. I try to have a 0.5:1 leverage, so my margin call is lower than the last ATH (266 for example). In these turbulent days my strategy didn't work out, I had to double down, but wasn't wiped out. Ente |
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Bitfinex has platformprobs:  This is BTC-USD, mind you.. Ente |
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Gox is dieing.
BTC withdrawal is halted indefinitely.
Gox tanks -> Stamp tanks
Cheap coins for us!
Ente
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Edit:
All buy walls on all exchanges are mostly fake. BTC isn´t worth more than 200 bucks.
I'll bite: I even offer you a 50% markup to the price you state. Please let me know how many Bitcoins I can buy from you for 300 bucks each. Of course you can manipulate the market. You put up a huge fake wall [...]
Problem with that is, that we have regular price fluctuations and BitStamp order integration. Your fake, inflated offer would be taken pretty quick, by someone wh didn't even look into the orderbook. Your fake wall doesn't show up in the BitStamp orderbook to begin with.. Maybe you could manipulate the BitFinex book a bit, but not to any amount that it's far away from the BitStamp rate. And, in general: I stopped bothering being clever with the orderbook. The market moves quicker than my strategies work out, so I make better trades when more-or-less dropping it all to the orderbook. Ente |
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Nice!
Mehr Info!
Wo steht die Kiste? Wie ist der Ablauf konkret?
Ente
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Giancarlo, thank you for the updates, and the good work you and the team did and do!
Also, you managed those whiners and wannabe-freeriders well! After reading post after post, page after page, I really had to bite my tongue.. ;-)
After all that was said I am curious what actually happened!
Ente
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Question: If you get a margin call on your trading wallet, but you have funds in your exchange wallet, will funds get pulled from your exchange wallet into your trading wallet, or will you get liquidated?
I ask because during slow markets, I primarily trade using exchange wallet rather than trading wallet, so that I don't get charged lending fees. But I still have a bunch of leveraged orders on my trading wallet at incremental low prices in case of flashcrashes and I really don't want to bother having to cancel them all whenever I want to trade on exchange and re-place them whenever I'm done trading on exchange. However, today with that bug two of my outermost flashcrash orders got hit while I had nearly no funds in my trading wallet and it was really a wakeup call. I had 0.8btc in my trading account and I bought 5 btc at 690.1 and 5btc at 680.1. lol. Luckily the price didn't go any further.
In the case that the wallet would be liquidated, I will have to adjust my strategy so that I primarily do trading on the trading wallet and in times when I want to be "in fiat" I will hold a balance of bitcoins but "short" the balance and have an open short position with an equal amount of bitcoins.
This wasn't answered yet I think. No, stuff from different wallets are completely independent from each other. Funds in your exchange wallet do not count as "security", don't lower your liquidation price in margin trading, and don't get liquidated if your funds in your trading wallet get liquidated from a bad position. Also, you can't lend out funds to receive interest and additionaly have those funds as "security" for margin trading. Independent wallets and independent tools. Ente |
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Idiots "People" started desperately throwing their remaining life savings at MNW
Come on guys, let's stick to the facts. MNW didn't take a single satoshi in that awful bet. No Bitcoins transferred, no escrow. He lost the bet and didn't pay. That's it. He has debt (where a good part is resolved already, he says), but didn't scam anyone out of anything there. That's not to say MNW isn't one of the more polarizing characters around here. Nor is Goat. On other topic, I find the abuse of the "Important Announcements" subforum annoying. But then, it seems like Goat is is doing a Streisand maneuver here. Knowingly or unknowingly, whatever. /popcorn Ente You think that's bad, you should see that fuck over on the Black Arrow thread. Somebody should take that rod outta his head and stick it up his ass. Ain't this embarrassing! I forgot to change accounts when I posted above thanks to the 502 Bad Gateway error. Now, I've lost all cred thanks to somebody quoting me.  Uhoh.. doublequote! :-P I'm always interested in new, shiny popcorn of epic magnitude. As this here quickly transforms into a boring fail of epic magnitude: link please? Ente |
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Haben wir fuer's naechste Mal schon eine neue Lokalitaet?
Yep! Wir treffen uns am 20.02. im Cafe Puschkin http://www.cafepuschkin.de/, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 74. Dort war auch das 0te Treffen, mit lecker Essen und schöner Location. Ente |
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Idiots "People" started desperately throwing their remaining life savings at MNW
Come on guys, let's stick to the facts. MNW didn't take a single satoshi in that awful bet. No Bitcoins transferred, no escrow. He lost the bet and didn't pay. That's it. He has debt (where a good part is resolved already, he says), but didn't scam anyone out of anything there. That's not to say MNW isn't one of the more polarizing characters around here. Nor is Goat. On other topic, I find the abuse of the "Important Announcements" subforum annoying. But then, it seems like Goat is is doing a Streisand maneuver here. Knowingly or unknowingly, whatever. /popcorn Ente |
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Sounds like I hit a nerve,
Right on target, just as I thought,
Freaking Children !
You are speaking with a grown man with kids,
Don't have time to carry-on with un-developed minds,
Guess that would make sense being that you're from "Third World Un-Developed Countries"
Careful a little gift from the USA, the next "TomaHawk Cruise Missile" or un-manned "Drone" just may be coming your way,
Freaking Muslim Terrorists trading BitCoin !
Enjoy your slightly more orange tag. Ente |
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