Ok yeah I see what you mean.
I'll try Bitstamp then, it's not really for the best to stay on a trading platform with such problems xD
It's not that I am vouching for Bitstamp either, considering the risks any and all trading platforms present. I am just talking about my personal experience/incidents or lack thereof.
Can you tell how many BTC were bought/sold in that huge spike to 2082€? According to the order books, it should take a massive order of almost 2000BTC to reach this price now. According to the charts, that did not happen (the volume in those spikes was about 100BTC). Therefore it was not a massive bought order but some kind of bug/error in their API. Dont you think so?
That does seem to be a likely explanation. Looking at the 5m chart, there seem to be two separate spikes above 2000Eur but both with rather low volume (100BTC)
Of course it was a "small" order that produced that spike BECAUSE IT BYPASSED THE ORDER BOOK.
But the problem is not in the API:
XBT/EUR
Last
€1,894.680
High
€2,082.958 Low
€1,757.400
24 Hour Volume
25,936.77
Weighted Avg
€1,879.344
There was real coins being bought at that price... but not from me or others even if we had lower sell limit orders in place way before that spike happenned. (days).
So the question is... who was the fortunate guy that sold them at that high price BYPASSING THE ORDER BOOK?
I was watching Kraken at that time. I was waiting in a queue for two hours and had very little to do except keep refreshing all my coin charts, including the Kraken app. I did not see that price reached or any unusual fluctuations in the price. I do not believe it was real, or if it was it must have been so momentary that no other prices were hit in between. A fat-fingered buyer perhaps? Someone who thought they were trading USD instead of EUR??
It could be a fat finger or most probably a short squeeze. That doesn't matter... the price reached 2082€ (as you can see on kraken site itself as high price today), I had sell limit orders placed on the ORDER BOOK from several days ago at 19XX€ which should have been honored. The price cannot reach higher without honoring orders in the order book. It's as simple as that.
Even if the site became unusable during that spike, orders already in the order book BEFORE the fat-finger/short squeeze must be honored (My orders were there from several days ago). YOu can even halt the trading for some issue, but the price cannot get higher without honoring previous lower orders. That's how an order book (should) works.
This is an old problem ... I am guessing that what has happened is..
That
your stop is in fact converted into a limit order - whereby your stop and limit are at the same (or very close) price.
If your stop-loss order was converted to a limit order, and if the exchange was unable to sell at that price as the price had already dropped through that level, then your order would not get executed...
Why- would an exchange convert your stop into a stop limit order vs a market order ?
=
Basically with a "straight" stop-loss order scenario (which executes as a market order), when the price reaches a predetermined level, the order converts into a market order - n this means the exchange will sell at the best price available.
The problem is, it could be well below the trigger price if there are no other bids on the books.
If there are two stop orders at the same price sitting on an exchange, priority goes to the one that was placed first.
So if X is trading at $30.75, and there are two stop market orders at $30.00, when price comes down and triggers the stops, the one that was placed first will get filled first.
But if there are also stop limit orders at the same price. Stop limit orders at the same price as a stop order will get priority, and will be filled first, even if they were placed after the stop order.
In fact, stop limit orders below the price of stop market order can still get priority over a stop order.
By placing a
stop order you are accepting the possibility of getting filled “where the market is trading”.
But with a stop limit order, you are only willing to accept a fill at a specific price or better if stop and limit are too far apart - the price can fly through your limit price and there is no longer liquidity enough in your price range and therefore the limit order is not triggered .
When price is falling fast which triggers a $30.00 stop order, turning it into a
market order, then continues to $29.98 before filling that market order, a
stop limit at $29.98
will get filled first. And if there is no more liquidity at that price and it drops to $29.00 before filling the market
(formerly stop) order, then limit orders at $29.00 will also get priority
in a thin or very fast market, your stop order can trigger, drop significantly and stay open, while stop limit orders get filled in front of it.
Guessing a variation of this is what happened in your case