Bitcoinica - Advanced Bitcoin Trading Platform

[zhoutong]

No fees?? 

Every transaction with 1.3% spread means that 10 transactions are a win of 13% and in 100 transactions 130% !!

I don´t need such trading platforms, i don´t need leverage trading and some speculative shit. Maybe short-selling could be a possibility to stabilize the own bitcoin depot.

AFAIK, Camp BX charges 2% for margin trading.

Also, the 1.3% spread is only the average value for recent market conditions. Spreads may vary. We have seen spreads more than 3% or less than 0.2%, depending on the actual market liquidity. You have the complete choice over when to trade and how much to trade.

You also have to consider the direction you are trading. Sometimes either buying or selling price is more favorable than the other based on the latest price.

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[zhoutong]

Twice now, I've created a limit order, set the amount and the price and submit forgetting to select "Buy" or "Sell". I don't know what Bitcoinica assumes, that I want to buy by default, or to automatically buy if higher than market and sell if lower, but I would have assumed (and would appreciate) the following:

If I make a LIMIT order, and the price is above the current ask, then I probably intend to set a future SELL order. If I set a price lower than the current bit, I intended a future BUY order. If I expected immediate execution, I would have made a MARKET order.

Similar logic should be assumed for STOPs. If I set a stop that is above the current ask, then Bitcoinica should assume I mean a BUY STOP. Whereas if I set a stop below the current bid, Bitcoin should assume I mean a SELL STOP. (I don't know if this is currently the case, because I have yet to make stop mistakes (I think) )

Thank you for your feedback. We will definitely improve our UI in the next release to at least warn users when their orders may be executed immediately.

For the current release, the buy or sell ratio buttons don't assume anything. If you enter -50 and ignore the rest, it'll be a sell order. Basically, if you choose sell, it will reverse the sign of the amount. It's for simplicity.

[robocop]

No fees?? 

Every transaction with 1.3% spread means that 10 transactions are a win of 13% and in 100 transactions 130% !!

I don´t need such trading platforms, i don´t need leverage trading and some speculative shit. Maybe short-selling could be a possibility to stabilize the own bitcoin depot.

AFAIK, Camp BX charges 2% for margin trading.

Also, the 1.3% spread is only the average value for recent market conditions. Spreads may vary. We have seen spreads more than 3% or less than 0.2%, depending on the actual market liquidity. You have the complete choice over when to trade and how much to trade.

You also have to consider the direction you are trading. Sometimes either buying or selling price is more favorable than the other based on the latest price.

Yes i understand you and it is ok.
But i mean that the trading shit is one of the reason that the fiat system is blowing up and the "virtual" economy is much bigger than the real economy ;-)

[Steve]

Yes i understand you and it is ok.
But i mean that the trading shit is one of the reason that the fiat system is blowing up and the "virtual" economy is much bigger than the real economy ;-)

I don't think trading itself is the problem.  It's the mismanagement of risk (sometimes due to instruments that weren't well understood and obscured risk, sometimes due poor policy or regulation, sometimes due to incentives that weren't appropriately aligned with risk).  On anther level, the fiat system itself is problematic in that it is an enabler of the expansion of a burdensome bureaucracy.

[BitMagic]

Every transaction with 1.3% spread means that 10 transactions are a win of 13% and in 100 transactions 130% !!

Good luck with that math, there, buddy. I hope you've leveraged everything to the maximum on Bitcoinica.

[tvbcof]

Yes i understand you and it is ok.
But i mean that the trading shit is one of the reason that the fiat system is blowing up and the "virtual" economy is much bigger than the real economy ;-)

It seems to me very unlikely that the Bitcoin system will be anywhere nearly as susceptible to the 'virtual' issues that vex our current debt-based ones. 

For one, it is the regulatory structures facilitate the extreme leverage and notional derivative values and such in our monetary systems, and there are none in Bitcoin.  Achieving a the same effect in the Bitcoin economy would require users to trust a counter-party with 50-1 leverage, and there is little reason to do that with Bitcoin.  If parties do and the counter-party goes bust, sad day for them.

For two, the only 'to-big-to-fail' is the Bitcoin network itself, and it does not derive it's strength from such games.  I don't see that it would ever need to.

[netrin]

For the current release, the buy or sell ratio buttons don't assume anything. If you enter -50 and ignore the rest, it'll be a sell order. Basically, if you choose sell, it will reverse the sign of the amount. It's for simplicity.

That's interesting. So, -50 is the AMOUNT, "I want 50 fewer bitcoins"? Is that precisely true for stops as well "I want 50 fewer bitcoin if the price drops below the price set"?

Zhoutong, could you explain the trailing stop is detail (I appreciated the unambiguous code example earlier). I expected they would approach the market price too quickly, but they actually performed well, though I still lost money on an otherwise good trade. I understand that a sell stop will keep matching the previous difference whenever the price goes up, but the sell stop will never go down again. Are the trailing stops recalculated after every trade, every new gain, or periodically (every minute maybe) or ...? Does the difference between the market price and the trailing stop necessarily decrease over time or are their instances when a trailing stop will 'stick' while the market price goes up? Reworded, does a trailing sell stop only increase when the market price goes higher than the original difference (order - stop) or does the stop increase with every market price gain?

[zhoutong]

For the current release, the buy or sell ratio buttons don't assume anything. If you enter -50 and ignore the rest, it'll be a sell order. Basically, if you choose sell, it will reverse the sign of the amount. It's for simplicity.

That's interesting. So, -50 is the AMOUNT, "I want 50 fewer bitcoins"? Is that precisely true for stops as well "I want 50 fewer bitcoin if the price drops below the price set"?

Zhoutong, could you explain the trailing stop is detail (I appreciated the unambiguous code example earlier). I expected they would approach the market price too quickly, but they actually performed well, though I still lost money on an otherwise good trade. I understand that a sell stop will keep matching the previous difference whenever the price goes up, but the sell stop will never go down again. Are the trailing stops recalculated after every trade, every new gain, or periodically (every minute maybe) or ...? Does the difference between the market price and the trailing stop necessarily decrease over time or are their instances when a trailing stop will 'stick' while the market price goes up? Reworded, does a trailing sell stop only increase when the market price goes higher than the original difference (order - stop) or does the stop increase with every market price gain?

A trailing sell stop will increase with every market price. It's being re-calculated after every new price is recorded (generally every 3 seconds).

== Bitcoinica's Code ==

when "TRAILING STOP"

        execute(order) if order.price <= order.current_price && order.amount >= 0
        execute(order) if order.price >= order.current_price && order.amount < 0


        if order.amount >= 0
          history_price = Ticker.last_tick(order.pair, order.updated_at).selling
         
          if order.current_price < history_price
            order.price += order.current_price - history_price # Add a negative number
            order.save
          end
         
        else
         
          history_price = Ticker.last_tick(order.pair, order.updated_at).buying
         
          if order.current_price > history_price
            order.price += order.current_price - history_price # Add a positive number
            order.save
          end
         
        end
...

[speeder]

Thus, it suck in extreme volatile sessions, because the actual BTC price might remain stable, but melt away your trailing stop.

[netrin]

Speeder, as for 'melt away' I'm not sure that's true. At least not the way I previously thought it worked. The trailing stop difference does not get ever smaller and smaller. But whenever the market price drops the same as your trailing difference from ANY high, your stop will get triggered.

In my case, I bought at around $2.6 with a trailing stop .15 or .2 lower and it got triggered very soon there after. I bought again at $2.8 with a trailing stop .3 lower and it has not been triggered even after the bounce this morning (Mt Gox $3.25 - $2.9). I don't know what the bitcoinica prices were, but I'm content with this action. My trailing stop is now at $2.87.

Zhoutong, if it's not too much trouble, do you think you could estimate the ideal (minimal difference) trailing stop if I had purchased at $2.6 on 25 October and hoped not to have been triggered in the last four days. Do you think a .25 difference would have held my position ($2.6 buy, $2.35 trailing stop)?

I think we would all benefit from a picture of example volatile market and the trailing stops that would hold. Either that or a Bitcoinica chart with a y-axis. I'm using Mt. Gox charts and have no idea if Bitcoinica is generally more or less volatile.

[cypherdoc]

Speeder, as for 'melt away' I'm not sure that's true. At least not the way I previously thought it worked. The trailing stop difference does not get ever smaller and smaller. But whenever the market price drops the same as your trailing difference from ANY high, your stop will get triggered.

In my case, I bought at around $2.6 with a trailing stop .15 or .2 lower and it got triggered very soon there after. I bought again at $2.8 with a trailing stop .3 lower and it has not been triggered even after the bounce this morning (Mt Gox $3.25 - $2.9). I don't know what the bitcoinica prices were, but I'm content with this action. My trailing stop is now at $2.87.

Zhoutong, if it's not too much trouble, do you think you could estimate the ideal (minimal difference) trailing stop if I had purchased at $2.6 on 25 October and hoped not to have been triggered in the last four days. Do you think a .25 difference would have held my position ($2.6 buy, $2.35 trailing stop)?

netrin:  in a high volatility environment with an illiquid exchange reflected by the high spreads, you will suffer badly as the swings in both directions hit your trailing stops.  you will lose for sure in the long run.  the only way you can win is with a sustained move in one direction.

[netrin]

I don't have a bot and Bitcoinica stops let me sleep once in a while.

[phorensic]

The only thing I can ask for on the website is that more of the values get automatically updated with javascript.  It's a pain to have to click refresh or Trade to see percentage gain/loss.

[BitMagic]

Speeder, as for 'melt away' I'm not sure that's true. At least not the way I previously thought it worked. The trailing stop difference does not get ever smaller and smaller. But whenever the market price drops the same as your trailing difference from ANY high, your stop will get triggered.

Yeah, the distance between the price you bought (sold) at and the price you set your trailing stop is set as the maximum. If the prices close, nothing happens unless they meet and your stop is executed. The only time your stops move is if these two prices diverge past your initial maximum. In that case, your stop moves with the exchange price to keep that maximum constant.

I don't have a bot and Bitcoinica stops let me sleep once in a while.

Yeah, Cypherdoc is an idiot who doesn't know what he's saying. He's advocating for what you're already doing, but telling you to take out your one protection from volatility. He doesn't even understand your question.

I think it's a good one, it would be nice to see, graphically, a comparison between Bitcoinica's price volatility and what a good percentage below (or above, if you're short-selling) would be to reasonably protect profits without accidentally triggering a sell. On an average day, of course.

You could figure this out yourself, netrin, if we could get some trend data on Bitcoinica's price movements.

[zhoutong]

I don't have a bot and Bitcoinica stops let me sleep once in a while.

Yeah, Cypherdoc is an idiot who doesn't know what he's saying. He's advocating for what you're already doing, but telling you to take out your one protection from volatility. He doesn't even understand your question.

I think it's a good one, it would be nice to see, graphically, a comparison between Bitcoinica's price volatility and what a good percentage below (or above, if you're short-selling) would be to reasonably protect profits without accidentally triggering a sell. On an average day, of course.

You could figure this out yourself, netrin, if we could get some trend data on Bitcoinica's price movements.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49830.0

[BitMagic]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49830.0

Oh good, you have the data. A link to a CSV or spreadsheet would be awesome so we can run our own analyses.

[zhoutong]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49830.0

Oh good, you have the data. A link to a CSV or spreadsheet would be awesome so we can run our own analyses.

You can use API to access historical prices for now.

In the future, we may consider releasing daily prices in a package.

[BitMagic]

You can use API to access historical prices for now.

In the future, we may consider releasing daily prices in a package.

Ah, that's out of my expertise, sadly, but netrin, do what you will! Thanks, Z, super helpful as always.

[netrin]

After we finish this two week C wave up, maybe I'll experiment with multiple short trailing stops and post my results here.

[randomguy7]

Damn, bitcoinica is down.  

edit: back online