Don't forget, Bitcoinica is also a dark pool.

Please send an email to support@bitcoinica.com to request for stats. If you are holding more than 1,000 USD, we are glad to talk with you more.

Otherwise, since Bitcoinica is linked to Mt. Gox, it's very easy to capture our trading algorithm if we announce everything to the public. Bitcoin is a very small market and Bitcoinica has a significant portion of trades.

We have been in net long (6,000 BTC to 15,000BTC range) for the past 7days.

We will solve the problem in the next big release. You can expect some more stats from us.

Thank you for your feedback. We will definitely improve our UI in the next release to at least warn users when their orders may be executed immediately.

For the current release, the buy or sell ratio buttons don't assume anything. If you enter -50 and ignore the rest, it'll be a sell order. Basically, if you choose sell, it will reverse the sign of the amount. It's for simplicity.

AFAIK, Camp BX charges 2% for margin trading.

Also, the 1.3% spread is only the average value for recent market conditions. Spreads may vary. We have seen spreads more than 3% or less than 0.2%, depending on the actual market liquidity. You have the complete choice over when to trade and how much to trade.

You also have to consider the direction you are trading. Sometimes either buying or selling price is more favorable than the other based on the latest price.

Thank you for your feedback. Currently we are unable to provide more information on the spread because we don't have any formal partnership with Mt. Gox. A disclosure of such information may lead to abuse of our system. (It has happened once, but we quickly changed the algorithm to a more sophisticated one.)

Currently you can view the average spread over the last 24 hours on our home page.

In the future, when we are able to settle the metrics and algorithms to a more robust level, we will definitely disclose as much as we can to ensure transparency.

If you are interested in some specifics of our data available, please send an email to support@bitcoinica.com. We are willing to discuss with you.

class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
  def current_price
    current_price = Ticker.where(:pair => pair).last.selling if amount >= 0
    current_price = Ticker.where(:pair => pair).last.buying if amount < 0
  end
end

Here, selling == ask, buying == bid in common context.

Alright, please just deposit $4,000.

I will give you $20,000 tradable balance. Let's see.

Sorry, I can't disclose specific account information. You can ask him directly.

If you are really so confident, please buy on Bitcoinica with margin.

I can give you $1 to try it out.

Those who trade on margin have already been wiped out long ago.

I don't see any significant problems even if the price increase to $4 or decrease to $1.5.

The trading fee isn't that significant.

If I buy at 2.8, I only need the price to increase to 2.80756 - 2.8168 to make a profit. (Depending on fee tier)

Providing liquidity like this can also earn very good profit if the fluctuation continues.

Observed the same thing on the buy side.

The super-long chart is in log-scale.

Did you see it wrongly or are you asking for super-long linear?

Secondary click -> Open Image in New Tab, or simply save it.

Red: Selling rate   Green: Buying rate

Linear-scale



Log-scale



Super-long

Today's volatility is indeed amazing.

Just look at Bitcoinica's volume today.

This is exactly what I'm doing.

Bitcoinica is a good foundation.

I don't deny the problems of excessive speculation. Everything you said is true.

However, no commerce is no commerce. It's not speculators' fault. If all speculators leave Bitcoin today, there will be still no commerce.

That's why I said we should all focus on what we do, and stop blaming others.

I believe that there are many merchants out there are part-time speculators as well, because everyone wants to grow his own wealth, ceteris paribus. Speculation is what made us today, and we are now looking forward to our tomorrow. It just doesn't make sense to me to ask everyone use Bitcoin as a currency. If everyone is using Bitcoin as a currency, Bitcoin will never be a useful currency. It will just be hackers' monopoly dollars.

0. This post is not about Bitcoinica, or leveraged speculation in general. I was saying that the mindset that Bitcoin is only useful when we can provision goods and services without having to change Bitcoins into other currencies is not correct.

1. If you want to grow national economy, just use fiat currencies. There shouldn't be any difference between the fiat economy and Bitcoin economy if you really use Bitcoin as a currency. The problem of Bitcoins is that people want to isolate them from the real world. In the very short run, holding USD and holding BTC make no difference to everyone. The Bitcoin economy is not so advanced that banks (or e-wallets or exchanges) can use the deposits elsewhere for investment. At this moment, most people think these are scams.

2. Last week I bought a website for $10,000. The seller and I both agreed that PayPal's awful and international wire is too slow and inconvenient. So we decided to go with Bitcoins even though the guy didn't know anything about it. He was surprised that I had managed to sell 2,000 BTC for $10,000 in a few hours. Who bought those coins? Speculators! Well, another guy is on board. Who else can provide liquidity? If there's no speculators, merchants can't sell their revenues and make products. Also, if you really use Bitcoin as a currency, what does high prices mean to you? Nothing. I was encouraging merchants not to afraid to exchange Bitcoins to other currencies, because Bitcoin is not an investment vehicle for merchants. If the market is stable, they hold, if not, they buy and sell - it's perfectly natural.

3. I know my risk. You don't have to tell me that I shouldn't take too much risk.

I'm never against putting Bitcoins into use. When did I? I against the view that speculators are bad for Bitcoin. If we want to make Bitcoin economy a bigger pie, we shouldn't criticize speculators and investors. They are a very important part to our economy.

Why the registered users doubled in May? Because of media and speculation. At least it makes a lot of people suddenly aware of this stuff. It also reminded me, who will be developing a series of apps to contribute to the community, that Bitcoin is something noteworthy. (I was aware of Bitcoin more than a year ago, I mined some coins (a few hundred) and lost them because they had no value to me. Bitcoin came to my attention again when its value is more than $1.)

The market is always correct. It's just something that everyone follows. It makes no sense to determine the nature of a particular trade - the nature doesn't determine the value. Speculators are the people who "wow" the new adopters, including me in the past. I know the economic importance, philosophical value, technical elegance and social effect of Bitcoin, but at the bare minimum, I know it's something worth trading. We simply can't expect anyone to appreciate a currency without showing them the money and the market.

What's unique about Bitcoin in the very short-term? (Most people think short-term only when they decide whether or not to learn it more. Early adopters of Bitcoin should all be curious, adventurous and open-minded. So they may think long-term. But it's entirely different when we convince others around us to adopt it.)

- Controlled money supply. (I don't think 99% of general population cares. They can't even link the increase in price to the increase of money supply.)

- Sending money in seconds. (Most people send money for consumption. We have credit cards.)

- Irreversible transactions. (Consumers think reversibility a protection. Merchants always strive for conversion rates.)

- No government control. (Over 99% don't care.)

- Unique products? No. Unique services? Hardly any.

- Speculation and investment! This is the main entrance of new Bitcoiners. Many people around me care about a "diversified currency portfolio", and they all agree Bitcoin should be in their portfolios, but they don't really care about the rest.

Bitcoin has the potential to make people feel their lives are being wasted with taxes, inflation and endless debts. But at the very beginning, what we need is:

- Miners to protect the network

- Speculators to provide liquidity

- Investors to increase the value

- Organizations to accept donations

- Consumers to buy the products

- Merchants to sell the products

Without anyone of the above, Bitcoin economy is just a joke.

So, if you are a speculator, good luck with your trade. If you are a merchant, keep selling. If you are a consumer, try to spend Bitcoins if you can. If you are a wealthy investor, make Bitcoin a part of your portfolio. Whoever you are, invite others to join, and we should all do what we love doing.

The human economy is a complex system with full of decentralized decision making, self-interests and property rights. For it to work, we shouldn't stop disrupting others' work. An economy is just a natural mixture of different human behaviors, and Bitcoin deserves to be the same.