MtGox Orderbook still artificially inflated by fraudulent users?!

[RogerR]

There seems to be a large number of highly suspicious MtGox bid entries at the moment, which still seem to be making use of a bug in the MtGox order entry engine that lets you put in several entries without you actually having enough money to actually execute all of them, caused by simply not erasing the previous entries if the highest ranked orders lock in all available funds.

They will not get executed once being reached, but cause a market distortion by leaving people with the false impression of highly increased demand, when in fact, there may be little to none.

Here are some of the latest orderbook entries (some of the suspicious orders in bold) - you judge for yourself:


[9.5101,175.91808498],[9.511,25],[9.5111,50],[9.51501,0.34941901],[9.5171,12.29],[9.52,191],[9.52111,4.738],[9.53,39.7],[9.531,2.18455146],
[9.5311,351.06096464],[9.5312,1.01],[9.54,0.5],[9.55,37],[9.55007,0.24190069],[9.56596,12.5],[9.596,174.34332847],[9.5961,174.34151166],
[9.6,1146.12980519],[9.60001,50],[9.6001,348.53774024],[9.6071,696.56757192],[9.61,535.58518418],[9.61001,10.0651],[9.61131,37.675],[9.61132,1.5],
[9.613,0.5],[9.615,6.5],[9.616,1],[9.62,3.05993711],[9.62999,1],[9.63,64.83396677],[9.63013,17.79],[9.65,50],[9.65001,1.5],[9.6528,0.4144],[9.66,42.05115767],
[9.66001,0.1],[9.662,1.00315],[9.67,21],[9.69,0.864],[9.6969,10],[9.7,205.30468485],[9.70003,0.2],[9.701,1.006],[9.707,10],[9.71,5],[9.718,3],[9.72255,8],
[9.725,3],[9.735,3.3],[9.73501,0.2],[9.73502,4.28],[9.74,1.04070944],[9.7401,16.42693606],[9.75,2],[9.7501,24.61513215],[9.7502,8.2049599],[9.76,1],
[9.7701,20],[9.78,5.5],[9.79,65.37282944],[9.7901,16.34304042],[9.8,59.54339998],[9.819,38.99769426],[9.8203,269.17155891],[9.8311,268.87585926],
[9.8402,268.6272088],[9.8459,0.4063],[9.8502,268.35449636],[9.8601,268.08505593],[9.87,537.23231206],[9.8721,1606.55511594],
[9.8731,535.46413184],[9.8732,267.72935421],[9.88,68.9261589],[9.889,1.02502881],[9.89,2],[9.9,0.10473535],[9.9601,513.28693186],[9.9602,255.39090179],
[9.9603,255.3883377],[9.96315,2.299668],[9.9701,0.1],[9.97584,0.1],[10,17.566959],[10.00551,0.9912828],[10.01,245.66567932],[10.01237,0.1],
[10.0301,245.17337315],[10.0399,244.93405811],[10.05,0.52],[10.056,978.1676412],[10.05608,7.9948839],[10.05784,0.15],[10.06,6.2568986],
[10.0601,244.4422471],[10.061,181.25],[10.0741,207.50569877],[10.0742,207.503639],[10.0851,207.27936857]

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[shakaru]

I see none of them live
http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/order-book/#

[RogerR]

I see none of them live
http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/order-book/#

My point exactly. But they are in the orderbook accessed via regular MtGox trading API. And they are displayed in the depth charts of both bitcoincharts.org and bitcoinity.org.

[neofutur]

I see none of them live
http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/order-book/#

My point exactly. But they are in the orderbook accessed via regular MtGox trading API. And they are displayed in the depth charts of both bitcoincharts.org and bitcoinity.org.

 I added an unfunded order to buy 300000 @ 8.7 and its not showing on http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD/accumulated_orderbook.png and not showing on http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD_depth.html

 are you sure of what you say ? looks mostly like one more FUD . . .

[Maged]

I see none of them live
http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/order-book/#

My point exactly. But they are in the orderbook accessed via regular MtGox trading API. And they are displayed in the depth charts of both bitcoincharts.org and bitcoinity.org.

 I added an unfunded order to buy 300000 @ 8.7 and its not showing on http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD/accumulated_orderbook.png and not showing on http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD_depth.html

 are you sure of what you say ? looks mostly like one more FUD . . .

That's not exactly how you do the exploit. As far as I know, the only thing that was actually fixed was the orders sticking around after they should have been executed.

You shouldn't be trusting the orderbook, anyway.

[Kermee]

There seems to be a large number of highly suspicious MtGox bid entries at the moment, which still seem to be making use of a bug in the MtGox order entry engine that lets you put in several entries without you actually having enough money to actually execute all of them, caused by simply not erasing the previous entries if the highest ranked orders lock in all available funds.

[9.8203,269.17155891]
[9.8311,268.87585926]
[9.8402,268.6272088]
[9.8502,268.35449636]
[9.8601,268.08505593]

Code:

[16:41] <molecular> lol, a bot gone wrong
[16:41] <molecular> I place bid at 9.82
[16:41] <molecular> bot places at 9.8201, 268 BTC
[16:41] <molecular> I raise to 9.83
[16:41] <molecular> he bids 9.8301, 268 BTC again
[16:41] <molecular> and so on
[16:42] <molecular> never removes old bids

Code:

[17:41] <MagicalTux> molecular: bug fixed
[17:41] <MagicalTux> thanks to your analysis
[17:42] <MagicalTux> and yes indeed, when an order was outside the spread (or close to) its status wouldn't go back to "open" but to "pending". Now even if it's close, if it's still insdie it goes to open (>= vs >)

Looks like it's been fixed.

Cheers,
Kermee

[neofutur]

There seems to be a large number of highly suspicious MtGox bid entries at the moment, which still seem to be making use of a bug in the MtGox order entry engine that lets you put in several entries without you actually having enough money to actually execute all of them, caused by simply not erasing the previous entries if the highest ranked orders lock in all available funds.

[9.8203,269.17155891]
[9.8311,268.87585926]
[9.8402,268.6272088]
[9.8502,268.35449636]
[9.8601,268.08505593]

Code:

[16:41] <molecular> lol, a bot gone wrong
[16:41] <molecular> I place bid at 9.82
[16:41] <molecular> bot places at 9.8201, 268 BTC
[16:41] <molecular> I raise to 9.83
[16:41] <molecular> he bids 9.8301, 268 BTC again
[16:41] <molecular> and so on
[16:42] <molecular> never removes old bids

Code:

[17:41] <MagicalTux> molecular: bug fixed
[17:41] <MagicalTux> thanks to your analysis
[17:42] <MagicalTux> and yes indeed, when an order was outside the spread (or close to) its status wouldn't go back to "open" but to "pending". Now even if it's close, if it's still insdie it goes to open (>= vs >)

Looks like it's been fixed.

Cheers,
Kermee

AFAIK, unrelated

[Kermee]

AFAIK, unrelated

Ah. Gotcha. -- The OP's description and data seemed to point to a red-herring where the actual bug was the status of outdated bids weren't reflecting order statuses correctly depending if they were inside or outside the spread leaving the outdated bid 'active'...

Looks like I misunderstood.

Cheers,
Kermee

[Clark]

I see none of them live
http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/order-book/#

My point exactly. But they are in the orderbook accessed via regular MtGox trading API. And they are displayed in the depth charts of both bitcoincharts.org and bitcoinity.org.

My site accesses the standard API to pull in the whole depth table and uses the WebSocket to make updates to that data. I also truncate the output to 5 decimal places for size display.