Shorts on Bitfinex at a all time high!

[hyphymikey]

To close out those shorts coins have to be bought back. They have around 20K coins on finex for sell. It was a joke about million dollar coins, but just wanted to point out there are more shorts than can be closed. Or am I missing something?

If I borrow something and sell it, and then I have to buy back in able to return what I sold but there isn't enough out there no matter the price, what do I do?

Also, I don't need bitcoin to be above 300. I want as many coins as possible, shorters are helping me accumulate. But seeing the order books I would not short myself.

That would be assuming the shorters don't short again after closing position or that people in long positions don't close their longs as the price rises. However as the price begins to rise from other closing their position new asks will be placed on the orderbook.

As I said in the wall observer thread, I understand this, but if it's cascading there is no time for any of that to happen. 30K shorts will close into 20K asks before a single trader with a long decides to sell, a shorter decides to reopen, or new asks appear on the order book. This happened at bfx before with the long squeeze to 100. Although unlikely, still dangerous.

Anyways, I'm out, hopefully we have some fun tomorrow!

[RoadTrain]

As I said in the wall observer thread, I understand this, but if it's cascading there is no time for any of that to happen. 30K shorts will close into 20K asks before a single trader with a long decides to sell, a shorter decides to reopen, or new asks appear on the order book. This happened at bfx before with the long squeeze to 100. Although unlikely, still dangerous.

Anyways, I'm out, hopefully we have some fun tomorrow!

Are there take profit orders on Bitfinex? Some longs might be set to take profit at a certain price level, providing liquidity.
Also AFAIK Bitfinex has a system in place to prevent flash crashes/rises since that flash crash to $100.

[coinableS]

There's a rate spike yesterday... was it really 4% avg rate for a BTC swap? That seems insane.

[Cconvert2G36]

There's a rate spike yesterday... was it really 4% avg rate for a BTC swap? That seems insane.

The bulls don't have a monopoly on idiots.

[silverbox]

They would close into the 100k+ BTC that have been opened as longs.and need to close at some point..

However, sooner or later Bitfinex will implode and bulls and bears will get burned at the same time.

how will it implode?

Bitcoinica??

Zhoutonged??

Oh no bitfinex be closed, all our coins are gone they got "hacked"  we will return shortly don't worry!!

We will make it all good including that last 7% per week.  Everything is fine..

[Snorek]

There's a rate spike yesterday... was it really 4% avg rate for a BTC swap? That seems insane.

The bulls don't have a monopoly on idiots.

Than means it is good to invest in BTC swaps if I want to earn money? Or is this market gonna crash?

[ensurance982]

I love this... I know swaps have proven to be a quite bad indicator of impending movements but longs still going down and shorts this high... At some point they will have to close. And if we go down even further there'll be enough buying pressure to kick us out of the 2014 downtrend for sure!

[tokeweed]

I love this... I know swaps have proven to be a quite bad indicator of impending movements but longs still going down and shorts this high... At some point they will have to close. And if we go down even further there'll be enough buying pressure to kick us out of the 2014 downtrend for sure!

As long as BTC keeps going down, they will not close. 

[ensurance982]

I love this... I know swaps have proven to be a quite bad indicator of impending movements but longs still going down and shorts this high... At some point they will have to close. And if we go down even further there'll be enough buying pressure to kick us out of the 2014 downtrend for sure!

As long as BTC keeps going down, they will not close. 

Sure they will. People who make money close their shorts from time to time, so as not to lose money in an upwards-correction. But if shorts continue to pile up, this may lead to a cascade at some point, wiping out many positions at once. One hell of a sight

[tokeweed]

I love this... I know swaps have proven to be a quite bad indicator of impending movements but longs still going down and shorts this high... At some point they will have to close. And if we go down even further there'll be enough buying pressure to kick us out of the 2014 downtrend for sure!

As long as BTC keeps going down, they will not close. 

Sure they will. People who make money close their shorts from time to time, so as not to lose money in an upwards-correction. But if shorts continue to pile up, this may lead to a cascade at some point, wiping out many positions at once. One hell of a sight

Again, we'll see.  This could go either way.  The important thing is always be ready whatever direction the trend goes.

[tokeweed]

Is Bitfinex the biggest place that offers shorts?

I was wondering about this actually...  Why don't the other exchanges offer some bitcoin to be loaned for a fee.

[futureofbitcoin]

there's OKcoin but not too sure how they work

[ensurance982]

there's OKcoin but not too sure how they work

Their future markets seem to behave a bit funky these days, aren't they? I wouldn't be surprised if at least one Chinese exchange pulled a Gox, or at least a Stamp at some point this year or maybe next year.

[tokeweed]

there's OKcoin but not too sure how they work

Their future markets seem to behave a bit funky these days, aren't they? I wouldn't be surprised if at least one Chinese exchange pulled a Gox, or at least a Stamp at some point this year or maybe next year.

Wouldn't that be bad for Bitcoin's price and another stain on the way it's percieved by the mainstream?

[ensurance982]

there's OKcoin but not too sure how they work

Their future markets seem to behave a bit funky these days, aren't they? I wouldn't be surprised if at least one Chinese exchange pulled a Gox, or at least a Stamp at some point this year or maybe next year.

Wouldn't that be bad for Bitcoin's price and another stain on the way it's percieved by the mainstream?

Yeah, that would be terrible, sure. But it wouldn't surprise me much. This is still very much 'amateur hour' like many people like to call it. We need more insured and regulated exchanges!

[tokeweed]

there's OKcoin but not too sure how they work

Their future markets seem to behave a bit funky these days, aren't they? I wouldn't be surprised if at least one Chinese exchange pulled a Gox, or at least a Stamp at some point this year or maybe next year.

Wouldn't that be bad for Bitcoin's price and another stain on the way it's percieved by the mainstream?

Yeah, that would be terrible, sure. But it wouldn't surprise me much. This is still very much 'amateur hour' like many people like to call it. We need more insured and regulated exchanges!

No wonder people are shorting...

[tokeweed]

Their future markets seem to behave a bit funky these days, aren't they? I wouldn't be surprised if at least one Chinese exchange pulled a Gox, or at least a Stamp at some point this year or maybe next year.

I don't know about other chinese exchanges, but OKCoin seems extremely stable. I'm pretty sure that BTC-e will be gone in 2016 tho

?  Like Mt.Gox kind of gone?

[pleaseexplain]

to me this sounds like its going to turn sour. as the exchanges are not regulated etc essentially people cannot tell what is real inside what the exchange is doing. that is how the market got goxed.

with all this shorting I am sure the exchange itself is tempted if not actually doing something for it to clean up big time itself as a player in its own market place.

if playing poker would you allow the dealer to choose how many aces were in the pack and not just the "proper' number of 4.

I see blood everywhere.  

[Tzupy]

Yesterday there were huge spikes (now they are back to normal) in both BTC and USD swap rates, was it a glitch or is there some explanation?

[molecular]

Yesterday there were huge spikes (now they are back to normal) in both BTC and USD swap rates, was it a glitch or is there some explanation?

I'm not sure, didn't see the swap market order books at the time.

They look healthy now with 2.4 kBTC and 2 million USD offered at "flash return" rate and more at higher, but still "reasonable" rates.



I'm having a hard time imagining those orderbooks being empty on the ask sides and people borrowing at 4% / 9% per day (as depicted on bfxdata). That'd be 1.6 million % / 45 trilliion % annualized !! So I'm guessing: glitch.