BITSTAMP eXchange wall Observer. second biggest and best exchange

[beekeeper]

Yeah, no complaints at all about their support, withdrawals and deposits, it is great and smooth.

I agree

[Miz4r]

So there was a false rally because of this engine error, and traders at Gox decided to catch up to the same price level, what a mess.

There was no error... just large slow market order.

Yeah it's the large market orders with huge slippage that give problems. A 4k BTC wall can be eaten in one go without any lag but when there's a lot of slippage involved and many different orders have to be processed then the whole engine just lags up for a while.

[Luzio]

So there was a false rally because of this engine error, and traders at Gox decided to catch up to the same price level, what a mess.

There was no error... just large slow market order.

So did you check the asks a minute after this spike? It was basically still 2k to 205. And Bitstamp gives me a connection timeout now.

[alexout]

I dont get it. Im new at this :/

Under the buy/sell tab I saw a 300 bitcoin order for 210$ per when the price was lower. I hit the instant sell option and filled in the field to sell 5 btc and it showed 210$ as the price.

I went ahead and clicked sell, and then it said an open order was made to sell 5 btc at 210$.

Later I look and Ive sold 5 btc for the price of 189$! WTF??

Can someone please explain how this happened?

Thanks

[MoreFun]

So there was a false rally because of this engine error, and traders at Gox decided to catch up to the same price level, what a mess.

There was no error... just large slow market order.

So did you check the aks a minute after this spike? It was basically still 2k to 205. And Bitstamp gives me a connection timeout now.

Orderbook stays the same till the end of the market order (this is kind of new - less than a month).

[Luzio]

I was checking live on http://trading.i286.org/bitstamp/?item=btc&currency=usd and i am talking about a minute after the order.

[MoreFun]

I dont get it. Im new at this :/

Under the buy/sell tab I saw a 300 bitcoin order for 210$ per when the price was lower. I hit the instant sell option and filled in the field to sell 5 btc and it showed 210$ as the price.

I went ahead and clicked sell, and then it said an open order was made to sell 5 btc at 210$.

Later I look and Ive sold 5 btc for the price of 189$! WTF??

Can someone please explain how this happened?

Thanks

Orders are not opened during the market order is going on, the order is "in progress" status.

[alexout]

I dont get it. Im new at this :/

Under the buy/sell tab I saw a 300 bitcoin order for 210$ per when the price was lower. I hit the instant sell option and filled in the field to sell 5 btc and it showed 210$ as the price.

I went ahead and clicked sell, and then it said an open order was made to sell 5 btc at 210$.

Later I look and Ive sold 5 btc for the price of 189$! WTF??

Can someone please explain how this happened?

Thanks

Orders are not opened during the market order is going on, the order is "in progress" status.

So are you saying that if I see a order flashing green cuz its being filled, I should not try and fill it?

What about the fact that my open order was at 210$ but it sold the btc at 189$?

Thanks for your reply btw.

[Progressive]

Instant sell is a "market order" not a "limit order".

[TERA]

Woohoo the bid is up to 3 million!  It looks like some serious accumulation or fiat injection occured during that drop and we are ready to move higher with bid support.

[Rannasha]

Instant sell is a "market order" not a "limit order".

This.

It is essential to realize the difference between these two orders. A "market order" means that you'll leave it to the exchange to get you the best price possible. A "limit order" sets a limit to the price you're willing to buy at / sell for.

What happened in this particular case was that someone posted a huge 2K+ buy order at 210. At that point, the engine started eating up all the open sell orders below that price until it had filled this big buy order. A market sell order placed during this process was executed after the big buy was done and at that point there were no buy orders in the book above 189, which was the best price the engine could get you. If you had placed a limit order at 210, it would not have executed (since there were no buyers at this price, after the big one had processed) and it would still be in the books. An issue with this process was that the execution of the huge buy order took several minutes, which caused most of the confusion.

[alexout]

Instant sell is a "market order" not a "limit order".

This.

It is essential to realize the difference between these two orders. A "market order" means that you'll leave it to the exchange to get you the best price possible. A "limit order" sets a limit to the price you're willing to buy at / sell for.

What happened in this particular case was that someone posted a huge 2K+ buy order at 210. At that point, the engine started eating up all the open sell orders below that price until it had filled this big buy order. A market sell order placed during this process was executed after the big buy was done and at that point there were no buy orders in the book above 189, which was the best price the engine could get you. If you had placed a limit order at 210, it would not have executed (since there were no buyers at this price, after the big one had processed) and it would still be in the books. An issue with this process was that the execution of the huge buy order took several minutes, which caused most of the confusion.

THank you for the explanation

Is there any scenario where using the instant order is suitable over the limit order?

[Nemo1024]

I used instant today for the first time, when the market was moving down to 160 fast and I just wanted to secure a buy. Placing a limit would have taken time and by that moment you could end up in the rebound.

[oda.krell]

I missed today's (probably: flash) crash, but I traded during the SR one, and I wasn't very happy with how bitstamp handled the large volume... my order got through in the end, but their website went belly up several times in between, and overall, the experience was extremely laggy.

Preliminary remark: I like bitstamp. Good support, decent communication, I trust them.

Problem: They're not fully prepared to handle the increased volume that headed their way in the past months, IMO.

Question: Can we, the customers, do something about it? Make it known that we'll continue to support them, but we expect better performance and reaction to events than, say, mtgox?

Any suggestions?

[alexout]

Obv everyone should he complaining to them and telling them they will take their business elsewhere if they dont upgrade etc.

[wachtwoord]

THank you for the explanation

Is there any scenario where using the instant order is suitable over the limit order?

None other than laziness. When buying stocks I never use a market order as well and always explicitly state a limit order. Why take a chance if it takes 20 seconds to do?

[gizmoh]

Anyone having a pain to load stamp pages? getting this "connection timeout" message often:

Oops!
Bitstamp is currently down

Connection timed out
The initial connection between CloudFlare's network and the origin web server timed out. As a result, the web page can not be displayed.
Ray ID: c295b67d79307ff
Your IP address: ------------
Error reference number: 522
CloudFlare Location: Singapore
 

[TERA]

[SheHadMANHands]

Anyone having a pain to load stamp pages? getting this "connection timeout" message often:

Oops!
Bitstamp is currently down

Connection timed out
The initial connection between CloudFlare's network and the origin web server timed out. As a result, the web page can not be displayed.
Ray ID: c295b67d79307ff
Your IP address: ------------
Error reference number: 522
CloudFlare Location: Singapore
 

Yup, seen it several times last few weeks, though refreshing the page always resolved it.

[SheHadMANHands]

Probably a stupid question, but why isn't there arbitrage between btce and stamp?  Like a 10$ difference (technically less than 5%).

Or for that matter, btce and coinbase, with their 1% withdrawal fee.