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[Dargo]

Hey Drago, I yet have another question.

When I go long or short can I in any case get into depts ? Or will potential losses be covered by kraken?
Thanks!

You are responsible for all losses in your account. It is remotely possible that your account balance could go negative, but it's highly unlikely. We would liquidate your margin position long before your account goes negative and it would only be in the case of a highly unusual market condition that we couldn't liquidate your position for a good enough price to keep your account from going negative (i.e. incredibly volatile moves in the market). See the discussion of "Margin Level" and especially "Liquidation Level" in the Trading Guide:

https://support.kraken.com/hc/sections/200560633-Leverage-and-Margin

To give you a feel for it, if you leveraged your entire account balance long at 2:1 leverage, it would take a 30% drop in BTC price before you would reach the liquidation level of 40%, and another 20% drop from there before your account balance would go negative. So it would basically take a very fast 50% drop in the market to make your balance go negative in this case. Such a move is very unlikely, but not impossible.

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[bahamapascal]

Hey Drago, I yet have another question.

When I go long or short can I in any case get into depts ? Or will potential losses be covered by kraken?
Thanks!

You are responsible for all losses in your account. It is remotely possible that your account balance could go negative, but it's highly unlikely. We would liquidate your margin position long before your account goes negative and it would only be in the case of a highly unusual market condition that we couldn't liquidate your position for a good enough price to keep your account from going negative (i.e. incredibly volatile moves in the market). See the discussion of "Margin Level" and especially "Liquidation Level" in the Trading Guide:

https://support.kraken.com/hc/sections/200560633-Leverage-and-Margin

To give you a feel for it, if you leveraged your entire account balance long at 2:1 leverage, it would take a 30% drop in BTC price before you would reach the liquidation level of 40%, and another 20% drop from there before your account balance would go negative. So it would basically take a very fast 50% drop in the market to make your balance go negative in this case. Such a move is very unlikely, but not impossible.

So a Negative account balance would be possibel. In that case I will stick to normel trading on kraken. I do recall several occasions where a flash crach happend in the las two years.
Bitfineix once went from some 400$ (more or less) to near zero value due to a chain reaction of margin liquidation. They handeld it by roling back the trades.
I rather trade with something I know what I can lose, then having the potential of geting in to debts that could ruin my live. Rather miss on the profits then : D

Thanks for the answer anyway

[ICFiedler]

So far we haven't been able to reproduce this issue. What error message are you seeing - is it the "Margin allowance exceeded" message, or something else?

"Insufficient Funds"

[ICFiedler]

Good news - the update is now being done every 5 minutes, so you should see your Fidor-Fidor payments being credited to your account much more quickly.

After this change it was actually around 1 minute. But lately it takes longer again. Right now, I am waiting for 40 minutes (and would like to go to bed ). edit: 90 minutes now :-/

[Serpens66]

Good news - the update is now being done every 5 minutes, so you should see your Fidor-Fidor payments being credited to your account much more quickly.

After this change it was actually around 1 minute. But lately it takes longer again. Right now, I am waiting for 40 minutes (and would like to go to bed ). edit: 90 minutes now :-/

like we found out several months ago, Fidor does not process payments at night....

Of course I think they should change this, because also the bitcoin.de Fidor instant trades launched (at least beta) and there will be alot of support questions, when the money from Fidor to Fidor takes 2 hours or more.

[Dargo]

Good news - the update is now being done every 5 minutes, so you should see your Fidor-Fidor payments being credited to your account much more quickly.

After this change it was actually around 1 minute. But lately it takes longer again. Right now, I am waiting for 40 minutes (and would like to go to bed ). edit: 90 minutes now :-/

like we found out several months ago, Fidor does not process payments at night....

Of course I think they should change this, because also the bitcoin.de Fidor instant trades launched (at least beta) and there will be alot of support questions, when the money from Fidor to Fidor takes 2 hours or more.

We just checked with Fidor on this and they say that Fidor-Fidor payments are generally processed 24hrs/day. But of course payments will sometimes be unavailable for various reasons (maintenance, technicals issues, etc.). Also, F-F payments to Kraken depend on our API connection with Fidor, which can have issues on our side or their side. In the past, Fidor has sometimes taken their API offline over the weekend for maintenance and we aren't always notified about this. 

Let us know if you are still experiencing an issue with F-F payments or find that the payments don't generally seems to be available 24hrs/day.

[Dargo]

So far we haven't been able to reproduce this issue. What error message are you seeing - is it the "Margin allowance exceeded" message, or something else?

"Insufficient Funds"

OK, thanks - the "Insufficient Funds" message means that the system thinks you don't have sufficient balance in marginable currencies (BTC, EUR, USD) to cover the initial margin requirement of the order. So if there's an issue, it sounds like the system may not be accounting for the overall initial margin required for long and short orders. I'll make sure the devs look into this if they aren't already.

[Amph]

i can't find it on your website under faq, but what is the maximum leverage? in the example it talk about 5:1 is that the maximum?

[ICFiedler]

So far we haven't been able to reproduce this issue. What error message are you seeing - is it the "Margin allowance exceeded" message, or something else?

"Insufficient Funds"

OK, thanks - the "Insufficient Funds" message means that the system thinks you don't have sufficient balance in marginable currencies (BTC, EUR, USD) to cover the initial margin requirement of the order. So if there's an issue, it sounds like the system may not be accounting for the overall initial margin required for long and short orders. I'll make sure the devs look into this if they aren't already.

Yes, that could be true: the system calculates the required margin by adding up all positions and open orders. But since the orders could cancel open positions, such a summing seems not to be correct.

Example:
I am 20BTC long and have 20BTC more long orders. I am able to put yet another 5BTC long order. But if I put a 20BTC short order (to cancel my position), I am not allowed to put another 5BTC long order in the book.

A second explanation would be that the liquidity pool was full in t1 but empty in t2 and "Insufficient funds" emant the liquidity pool is empty.

A third explanation would be that the liquidity pool is not separated into BTC and €, but rather treated as one pool of liquidity.

[ICFiedler]

i can't find it on your website under faq, but what is the maximum leverage? in the example it talk about 5:1 is that the maximum?

3:1 -- at least for my account (Germany, tier4).

[Amph]

i can't find it on your website under faq, but what is the maximum leverage? in the example it talk about 5:1 is that the maximum?

3:1 -- at least for my account (Germany, tier4).

so i presume that with tier 5 it will raise to 5:1? otherwise why talking about it in the example when it's not possible even with the highest level...

[Dargo]

So far we haven't been able to reproduce this issue. What error message are you seeing - is it the "Margin allowance exceeded" message, or something else?

"Insufficient Funds"

OK, thanks - the "Insufficient Funds" message means that the system thinks you don't have sufficient balance in marginable currencies (BTC, EUR, USD) to cover the initial margin requirement of the order. So if there's an issue, it sounds like the system may not be accounting for the overall initial margin required for long and short orders. I'll make sure the devs look into this if they aren't already.

Yes, that could be true: the system calculates the required margin by adding up all positions and open orders. But since the orders could cancel open positions, such a summing seems not to be correct.

The system does calculate the required margin by adding up all positions and unfilled orders (both buy and sell). The reason is to avoid "fake" orders on the book that can't be taken because they aren't backed by anything. If you have 10 BTC in your account, you can put in a leveraged buy order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage. But if you are also allowed to put in a leveraged sell order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage and the buy order is later filled, then you now have a fake 30 BTC sell order on the book that isn't backed by anything. And you could iterate this process to create more fake orders.

[Dargo]

i can't find it on your website under faq, but what is the maximum leverage? in the example it talk about 5:1 is that the maximum?

3:1 -- at least for my account (Germany, tier4).

so i presume that with tier 5 it will raise to 5:1? otherwise why talking about it in the example when it's not possible even with the highest level...

3:1 is currently the highest available leverage for both tier 3 and tier 4. However, we are still in the beta phase of the margin release and higher levels of leverage will be available later.

[ICFiedler]

So far we haven't been able to reproduce this issue. What error message are you seeing - is it the "Margin allowance exceeded" message, or something else?

"Insufficient Funds"

OK, thanks - the "Insufficient Funds" message means that the system thinks you don't have sufficient balance in marginable currencies (BTC, EUR, USD) to cover the initial margin requirement of the order. So if there's an issue, it sounds like the system may not be accounting for the overall initial margin required for long and short orders. I'll make sure the devs look into this if they aren't already.

Yes, that could be true: the system calculates the required margin by adding up all positions and open orders. But since the orders could cancel open positions, such a summing seems not to be correct.

The system does calculate the required margin by adding up all positions and unfilled orders (both buy and sell). The reason is to avoid "fake" orders on the book that can't be taken because they aren't backed by anything. If you have 10 BTC in your account, you can put in a leveraged buy order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage. But if you are also allowed to put in a leveraged sell order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage and the buy order is later filled, then you now have a fake 30 BTC sell order on the book that isn't backed by anything. And you could iterate this process to create more fake orders.

The sell order is not unbacked but backed by the long position of 30BTC. E.g. the buy order is accepted, the user is 30BTC long and can put a 30BTC sell order. The same is true when the sell order is accepted, where he can then open a 30BTC long order. So why not allow both orders to be placed? This would not be possible to be iterated, since 2x 30BTC long and 2x 30BTC sell orders make no sense, it would add to 60BTC instead of 30BTC.

[SebastianJu]

The prosecutor for massachusetts, who went against ken slaugther of activemining, was informed ahead of time about that the claims have to be done in time and he promised to fast go after that.

So can you say something about that? I know you arent allowed to spread confidential data but i think it should not be confidential if the activemining coins were claimed now.

By the way... how long until these claims get filled?

[Amitabh S]

Are all Gox accounts now automatically transferred to Kraken since they are now handling the claims process?

[Dargo]

So far we haven't been able to reproduce this issue. What error message are you seeing - is it the "Margin allowance exceeded" message, or something else?

"Insufficient Funds"

OK, thanks - the "Insufficient Funds" message means that the system thinks you don't have sufficient balance in marginable currencies (BTC, EUR, USD) to cover the initial margin requirement of the order. So if there's an issue, it sounds like the system may not be accounting for the overall initial margin required for long and short orders. I'll make sure the devs look into this if they aren't already.

Yes, that could be true: the system calculates the required margin by adding up all positions and open orders. But since the orders could cancel open positions, such a summing seems not to be correct.

The system does calculate the required margin by adding up all positions and unfilled orders (both buy and sell). The reason is to avoid "fake" orders on the book that can't be taken because they aren't backed by anything. If you have 10 BTC in your account, you can put in a leveraged buy order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage. But if you are also allowed to put in a leveraged sell order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage and the buy order is later filled, then you now have a fake 30 BTC sell order on the book that isn't backed by anything. And you could iterate this process to create more fake orders.

The sell order is not unbacked but backed by the long position of 30BTC. E.g. the buy order is accepted, the user is 30BTC long and can put a 30BTC sell order. The same is true when the sell order is accepted, where he can then open a 30BTC long order. So why not allow both orders to be placed?

I'm not sure I'd say the short order is "backed" by the long position, but since the short order could only be used to close the long position, it may be unnecessary to require additional margin for it. So I see your question and am checking to see about the possibility of allowing it. 

This would not be possible to be iterated, since 2x 30BTC long and 2x 30BTC sell orders make no sense, it would add to 60BTC instead of 30BTC.

Agreed - you couldn't iterate this to get an order larger than 30 BTC. I realized this after posting, but was away from the keyboard and couldn't correct it.

[Dargo]

The prosecutor for massachusetts, who went against ken slaugther of activemining, was informed ahead of time about that the claims have to be done in time and he promised to fast go after that.

So can you say something about that? I know you arent allowed to spread confidential data but i think it should not be confidential if the activemining coins were claimed now.

By the way... how long until these claims get filled?

We can't release any information about who has filed a claim. The timeline for payout of claims is entirely up to the trustee, not something we have control over. For the trustee, it probably depends on how many claims they receive, how many offline claims (since those take longer), how many conflicting claims they have to sort out (i.e. more than one person claiming the same account), etc. Payouts should happen before the end of the year, but it's hard to say much more than that at this point. Hopefully the trustee will give some kind of update later that includes some kind of estimate.

[Dargo]

Are all Gox accounts now automatically transferred to Kraken since they are now handling the claims process?

No - there will never be any transfer of Gox accounts to Kraken. We are only assisting with the claims process and the distribution of remaining assets. For those who do their payout with Kraken, there will be a transfer of funds to creditor's kraken accounts. 

[ICFiedler]

So far we haven't been able to reproduce this issue. What error message are you seeing - is it the "Margin allowance exceeded" message, or something else?

"Insufficient Funds"

OK, thanks - the "Insufficient Funds" message means that the system thinks you don't have sufficient balance in marginable currencies (BTC, EUR, USD) to cover the initial margin requirement of the order. So if there's an issue, it sounds like the system may not be accounting for the overall initial margin required for long and short orders. I'll make sure the devs look into this if they aren't already.

Yes, that could be true: the system calculates the required margin by adding up all positions and open orders. But since the orders could cancel open positions, such a summing seems not to be correct.

The system does calculate the required margin by adding up all positions and unfilled orders (both buy and sell). The reason is to avoid "fake" orders on the book that can't be taken because they aren't backed by anything. If you have 10 BTC in your account, you can put in a leveraged buy order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage. But if you are also allowed to put in a leveraged sell order for 30 BTC at 3:1 leverage and the buy order is later filled, then you now have a fake 30 BTC sell order on the book that isn't backed by anything. And you could iterate this process to create more fake orders.

The sell order is not unbacked but backed by the long position of 30BTC. E.g. the buy order is accepted, the user is 30BTC long and can put a 30BTC sell order. The same is true when the sell order is accepted, where he can then open a 30BTC long order. So why not allow both orders to be placed?

I'm not sure I'd say the short order is "backed" by the long position, but since the short order could only be used to close the long position, it may be unnecessary to require additional margin for it. So I see your question and am checking to see about the possibility of allowing it.  

This would not be possible to be iterated, since 2x 30BTC long and 2x 30BTC sell orders make no sense, it would add to 60BTC instead of 30BTC.

Agreed - you couldn't iterate this to get an order larger than 30 BTC. I realized this after posting, but was away from the keyboard and couldn't correct it.

Great you look into it. Here is a fresh example from a second ago to show that it is currently inconsistent: order sequence counts, but it should not
- I am 5BTC short
- I have 25BTC open short orders
- I can place another 5BTC short order, I can also place a 30BTC long order
- If I place the 5BTC short order before the 30BTC long order, it goes through
- If I place the 30BT long order first, I cannot place the 5BTC short order anymore. I then need to cancel the 30BTC long order, place the short order and replace the long order.

edit: another feature request: let users close their positions with their balances. For example, someone is 10BTC short, sends 10 BTC to kraken and has then the option to close his position with his balance.