Is this mtgox "lag" real or artificial?

[00null]

By following todays price movements at mtgox one could not help to notice that whenever the price goes down the trade engine starts to lag. It seems the engine can easily handle any raising price, but mysteriously starts to lag once the price goes down a few percent.
Seeing Mark talking about artificially regulating the Bitcoin price in this reuter video I wonder if this lag is actually for real. Mark earns a lot of fees in Bitcoin, so naturally he does prefer a higher price.
By adding a little bit of lag once it goes down he can make it impossible for traders to know how much other traders have already bought, so one needs to place a market order or risking to miss the dip. This lag is a really clever tactic to manipulate the price. I think we did see this exact behavior today.

[1713496619]

1713496619

[Manticore]

I've been posting about this for awhile.

The story always gets twisted into 'the lag caused the drop' when the drop always happens well before the lag. Today, we dropped from $145 to $123 without any signs of manipulation and then the lag started at $123, moved slowly to $120, lagged longer, then shot up to $145 during the lag in less than a minute before settling back down again. Where else does one find this kind of pricing action???

We always go lower, the lag appears, we don't go much lower after it starts (except on April 11th), and we bounce as the lag is ending. If this is an attempt at dropping the price, they are dong a very poor job and spending a ton of money 'simulating' a sell-off with large coin dumps. If it's an attempt at protecting the price, they have a winning average and are spending nothing by lagging out (Gox, bots, DDoS, whomever?) to support the price.

I guess most people here don't watch this very closely because it's fairly blatant. Gox reportedly began lagging on the upside in the days after the crash. I did not see this although people have reported it. I did not see upside lag in the weeks before the crash.

April 11th was an exception, IMO, because selling overpowered any attempt at stemming the sell-off. We were going down that day regardless.

Nobody here wants to believe this and you will likely be crucified for mentioning it (they'll call you a shill, troll, etc). These exchanges are not regulated. With such low liquidity, phony volume could move this thing like a piñata. This is essentially the pink sheets.

[Kazu]

That was really dumb. How in the world does lag "increase" the price? How in the world can you look at past data and say it has?

It is very unlikely that mt gox's lag is being done to on purpose cause BTC to be priced too low. But implying the opposite is insanity.

[Manticore]

That was really dumb. How in the world does lag "increase" the price? How in the world can you look at past data and say it has?

It is very unlikely that mt gox's lag is being done to on purpose cause BTC to be priced too low. But implying the opposite is insanity.

How is this insane? Do you have any idea the types of shenanigans that were employed on the NYSE in the 1920s in a market that had a much larger relative size? Recently, a brokerage in India trading on the United Stock Exchange was suspected of creating massive fake volume using algo trading that accounted for 80% of the entire exchange volume. Wash sales & matched orders happen on the OTC:BB all the time (and have been prosecuted by the SEC frequently and recently).

It would not be very difficult to lag out then create phony volume that simulates a bounce (in slow motion) and helps stop the panic because everyone has time to see the bounce (more pronounced in slow motion). This is complete conjecture with no basis (except for the bizarre trading patterns & lags)......but it isn't that far fetched. And I'm not going so far as to outright accuse Gox; it could be trading bots that jam up their system then support the price briefly in an attempt to stem panic.

[meangreen]

or if a huge trade comes in, step right in front of it buy and then put your sell order in asap

[BitPirate]

Lag coincides with higher volume. Look at any charts and (unfortunately) see where the higher volume suddenly spikes -- just after the start of a downtrend.

[Manticore]

Lag coincides with higher volume. Look at any charts and (unfortunately) see where the higher volume suddenly spikes -- just after the start of a downtrend.

Not always.....and almost never (that I've seen, at least) on the upside during periods of high volume.

[Manticore]

or if a huge trade comes in, step right in front of it buy and then put your sell order in asap

Exactly. Front running. Mismatched bids/asks. Etc. Again, not saying they do it.....but it is certainly possible.

[KeyserSoze]

While I wouldn't wholly discount shenanigans, it's probably a combination of Gox not being able to handle spikes combined with DDOS. I would guess if we aren't seeing much volume but are seeing lag perhaps it's DDOS. Prolexic had an article about top DDOS targets and anything-bitcoin was included. When it hits incredible volume spikes then it's just bandwidth problems.

CampBX, which had been fairly stable, is now suffering minutes offline during the most active trading spikes. It's OK for position buying but nearly worthless for day trading with its low volume and bandwidth frailty. I'm hoping they can grow and survive FINCEN.