Price manipulation at Bitstamp or people just not paying attention?

[LiteBurner]

When Mtgox prices dipped into the $120's, there was consistent bidding over ask at Bitstamp which mostly held the "last price" or the displayed price over $130.

People were bidding $10 over ask.  It looked like market manipulation, but it was after 1 am on the USA east coast, so maybe people were just tired.

What do you think?  A few people or the exchange dumped a lot of money to do it.

https://i.imgur.com/DAGC16J.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/V1W24wO.jpg

[1714519275]

1714519275

[1714519275]

1714519275

[1714519275]

1714519275

[1714519275]

1714519275

[LiteBurner]

Actually, it's going on right now.  Current time is 3:20 am eastern time.

Mtgox is $125 - $127, but as soon as the price at bitstamp.net went below $130, the bids over ask started coming in, keeping the "last price" over $130.

https://i.imgur.com/vaXhoKX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/9mY1mNz.jpg

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Perhaps it is someone who only uses Bitstamp and wants to buy as much bitcoins as he can under $130.

[LiteBurner]

Perhaps it is someone who only uses Bitstamp and wants to buy as much bitcoins as he can under $130.

You mean over $130?  It's gotta be weird when the bids are consistently over ask.  

Just now:

https://i.imgur.com/QhsYGym.jpg

[LiteBurner]

Watch the live trades--every time bids and asks go below $130, there are higher bids to keep up the display price.

Right now $133 bid while the ask is just $130.38

That's manipulation.  I'd like to see a stable btc price, but if it's manipulated, it is likely to go wild if the manipulation stops or fails.

[aes1]

It just seems wrong to see bids exceed asks on an exchange. Why weren't those trades executed? I've also seen the exact same price on the bid and ask side, and wondered what went wrong.

(Yes - matching orders can be hard - like I wrote here...)

[LiteBurner]

It just seems wrong to see bids exceed asks on an exchange. Why weren't those trades executed? I've also seen the exact same price on the bid and ask side, and wondered what went wrong.

(Yes - matching orders can be hard - like I wrote here...)

If you look at the price, the higher bids were executed and show up as the price, that appears to be the whole point of them making the higher bids--to keep the shown price up.

It's too consistent to be natural.  Watch the live orders for a while at bitstamp and you'll see what I mean.

This has only been as the price approached $130.  Normally bids lead down, asks lead up.

When bids lead up, you know there is manipulation going on.

(Yeah, I've come to this conclusion after 6 hours of watching this.)

[qxzn]

How do you know it's manipulation rather than a simple bug?

Bitfloor had a bug that allowed crossed-books in the UI, but it was just a UI bug and the order books never really got crossed.

[supert]

This sounds more like a flaky order matching algorithm than anything -- bids over asks should be executed at the ask (or the other way round if the ask comes in later). I.e. it should never happen on an exchange.

[evilscoop]

remember bitstamp as auto trading built in....ppl may have orderbooks open at stated price

[LiteBurner]

This sounds more like a flaky order matching algorithm than anything -- bids over asks should be executed at the ask (or the other way round if the ask comes in later). I.e. it should never happen on an exchange.

Yeah, could be, but it's interesting that it only happens when the price approaches $130.

remember bitstamp as auto trading built in....ppl may have orderbooks open at stated price

and that's another possibility--I was thinking of auto trading bots, but it seems like if they were programmed right, they wouldn't bid $10 over ask -- that was a 50 btc order so the overbid cost $500 for nothing.

Trading has been normal while the price was around $135 with bids below asks.

Price is approaching $130 again, so it will be interesting to see what happens and if we start seeing bids over ask again in what looks like an attempt to keep the price over $130.

[LiteBurner]

Something is happening right now at bitstamp to keep the Last Price from going below $130, even though though there are lower trades.

As it gets close to $130, there are lots of small trades of $130+ that keep Last Price from showing $129.

Day's Range, however, shows $127.51 - $148.61, which is correct.

[LiteBurner]

 
Ok, I just sold some at $129 and Last Price still never went below $130 -- definitely something fishy going on.

...update...I guess they couldn't hold it off any longer--Last Price now below $130 and falling.

[seleme]

Those smaller exchanges are manipulating paradises.

Low volume and if you are loaded with coins you can do lot of things that fit you. As much as I don't like MtGox I've decided to trade again on it (after initially leaving it) as I don't want to be blocked at some position 5 times per day by some bully who "owns" trades there.

[LiteBurner]

I wouldn't call bitstamp a small exchange--smaller than mtgox maybe, but I would guess it's an easy #2, and it's definitely a more responsive platform, and if I send my sepa transfer in the morning, it's in my account the next morning.

edit...just saw the volume figures, mtgox, 54,181 (I assume that is per day), bitstamp, 6641, so much bigger difference than I realized.  Still, almost $1,000,000 per day I wouldn't consider small.

Anway, on that issue I posted about--it seems to have something to do with the "Instant Orders" as opposed to "Limit Orders."

The instant orders are completed so fast that they may or may not show up as "Last Price."

Still weird, like right now, tons of instant trades at $135.89 showing as the last price but the ask is just $133.89.

But trades are happening every 2 to 4 seconds, so I guess that would stress any system.

Also, yesterday I had a buy in at $131 that was completed to my surprise because I was watching the prices and no trades showed lower than $133.50.