Bitcoinica - Advanced Bitcoin Trading Platform

[netrin]

It seems a simple SQL statement select where active order by price.

Anyway, looking forward to the new features.

As for withdrawls, I wasn't able to withdrawl gox codes, but bitcoin withdrawls hit the p2p network instantaneously.

[zhoutong]

It seems a simple SQL statement select where active order by price.

Anyway, looking forward to the new features.

As for withdrawls, I wasn't able to withdrawl gox codes, but bitcoin withdrawls hit the p2p network instantaneously.

They are very different.

We're limited by what Mt. Gox allows us to do. We don't even have an official partnership with them. So basically we have the same withdrawal limits.

You can send a support ticket to us and we will withdraw for you manually if automatic withdrawal fails.

For both technical and security reasons, we can't set up automatic withdrawals from our hedging account at the moment. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[ineededausername]

Shame on mtgox for not doing anything for one of their biggest customers.

[zhoutong]

Shame on mtgox for not doing anything for one of their biggest customers.

It's bad for them anyway.

People want to trade on Mt. Gox, that's why they withdraw from Bitcoinica. No one can benefit from funds being stuck between two platforms.

Trading on Mt. Gox, they receive 0.6% fees; but trading on Bitcoinica, they can only receive 0.26% (the fee tier we're at).

The withdrawal limit may be troublesome, but it has never limited Bitcoinica's growth. To put it simple, less withdrawals = less business for Mt. Gox.

In the future, we will try not to rely on this single exchange.

[ineededausername]

Shame on mtgox for not doing anything for one of their biggest customers.

It's bad for them anyway.

People want to trade on Mt. Gox, that's why they withdraw from Bitcoinica. No one can benefit from funds being stuck between two platforms.

Trading on Mt. Gox, they receive 0.6% fees; but trading on Bitcoinica, they can only receive 0.26% (the fee tier we're at).

The withdrawal limit may be troublesome, but it has never limited Bitcoinica's growth. To put it simple, less withdrawals = less business for Mt. Gox.

In the future, we will try not to rely on this single exchange.

Hi zhoutong, thanks for withdrawing my money for me!
I am very glad that you are moving.  Please urge tradehill to make codes though. It's such a no-brainer.

[ineededausername]

I think a manual payout queue would be a good thing to integrate into the withdrawal system if it fails to automate withdrawals.

[netrin]

It's really a good idea and we have actually considered the "price ladder" view... However, we may not launch this feature in the next release because we want to integrate with order entry directly... Our current focus is a much better front-end experience....

At this time, if your also sorted by price whenever the user clicked the active/cancel column, this will help enormously today (even if you are releasing a new interface next month).

[netrin]

I see the leverage has been halved. Does that mean the number of shorts are straining the system?  ... sounds bullish.

[zhoutong]

I see the leverage has been halved. Does that mean the number of shorts are straining the system?  ... sounds bullish.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52092.0

[tvbcof]

I finally decided that if I continue to play around with Bitcoin trading, even if it is just for accumulation, I should learn to leverage some of the features of Bitcoinica.  It is hard not to be impressed by the professionalism and skill displayed by Zhoutong over these last few months so while I will as with any other Bitcoin outfit trust them with as little as possible, I am confident enough to have an account and possibly a fair amount of value in it on a transient basis.

I played around with stop orders and lost close to the precise amount of money I expected to...around two cents

Several things of note:

I was under the impression that I needed an Mt. Gox account for some reason.  Something about redemption codes or some such.  Not having been an Mt. Gox customer (again until last night) I did not really understand what they were and didn't feel like trying to.  But it seems that I had a misconception about the necessity of having an Mt. Gox account.  It seems like I can both add and withdraw BTC to arbitrary addresses though I have only tried the former as I write this.

I seem to have been 'blessed' with 5:1 margin unless I am reading the UI wrong.  I actually think that it is good practice to start people out with something lower if it is easy to set it to whatever the customer wishes.  (If as a customer, I wish to be suicidal and can do so without risk to Bitcoinica, so be it.)  In order to thwart those who would game the Bitcoinica user base, a good policy might even be to set the margin ratio randomly.

I did not feel comported by several pieces of text that I found:

  "Why not place an order now?"

  "If you just want to make some quick bucks in the hot market, Bitcoinica is definitely for you!"

  "What are you waiting for?"

I think that the Bitcoin economy needs a professional no-bullshit platform in order to have a hope being a usable economy (because it is natively volatile and unstable as a currency at this time) and Bitcoinica has some real potential to take an unassailable lead here.  I guess that is why the text I have mentioned bothers me personally just a bit.  But I'm no marketing guru.

[BitMagic]

I finally decided that if I continue to play around with Bitcoin trading, even if it is just for accumulation, I should learn to leverage some of the features of Bitcoinica.  It is hard not to be impressed by the professionalism and skill displayed by Zhoutong over these last few months so while I will as with any other Bitcoin outfit trust them with as little as possible, I am confident enough to have an account and possibly a fair amount of value in it on a transient basis.

I played around with stop orders and lost close to the precise amount of money I expected to...around two cents

Several things of note:

I was under the impression that I needed an Mt. Gox account for some reason.  Something about redemption codes or some such.  Not having been an Mt. Gox customer (again until last night) I did not really understand what they were and didn't feel like trying to.  But it seems that I had a misconception about the necessity of having an Mt. Gox account.  It seems like I can both add and withdraw BTC to arbitrary addresses though I have only tried the former as I write this.

I seem to have been 'blessed' with 5:1 margin unless I am reading the UI wrong.  I actually think that it is good practice to start people out with something lower if it is easy to set it to whatever the customer wishes.  (If as a customer, I wish to be suicidal and can do so without risk to Bitcoinica, so be it.)  In order to thwart those who would game the Bitcoinica user base, a good policy might even be to set the margin ratio randomly.

I did not feel comported by several pieces of text that I found:

  "Why not place an order now?"

  "If you just want to make some quick bucks in the hot market, Bitcoinica is definitely for you!"

  "What are you waiting for?"

I think that the Bitcoin economy needs a professional no-bullshit platform in order to have a hope being a usable economy (because it is natively volatile and unstable as a currency at this time) and Bitcoinica has some real potential to take an unassailable lead here.  I guess that is why the text I have mentioned bothers me personally just a bit.  But I'm no marketing guru.

Just a heads up about depositing bitcoin instead of USD: By depositing bitcoin, you have essentially automatically placed a long order for the total quantity of bitcoin and are subject to the bid/ask prices on deposit. This means a few important things:

1) If you bought your BTC for $2 (say, the current price), and the spread is 1.95-2.05, when you deposit, you would have to sell at 1.95 to get USD. The alternative is to withdraw, deposit back into MtGox and trade from there. As long as you understand the lag and the spreads, this is just fine.

2) By depositing BTC, you have initiated a standing long order. I.e. your net value will adjust as prices adjust. This means that by depositing BTC, you are susceptible to margin call and forced liquidation as prices change. This is not true if you deposit USD.

If the only way for you to get cash into bitcoinica is through BTC, and you want to hold long, this is all fine. But if you want to try short selling, you're paying a slight premium to deposit BTC, close your order, and then place a sell.

Last, don't worry about leverage, if you're responsible. You aren't required to purchase on full leverage, only as much as you're comfortable with.

[tvbcof]

...
Last, don't worry about leverage, if you're responsible. You aren't required to purchase on full leverage, only as much as you're comfortable with.

The tips are helpful and highly appreciated.  Enough so that I'd send yo Libertarian ass a BTC if you mention what kind of a special address starts with a '9' char.  I couldn't figure it out with a cursory bit of searching.

QQ:  Is it undoable (and unnecessary) to convert some of the BTC I put in into USD?  Is it the norm for someone who deals exclusively with BTC to just let Bitcoinica settle negative USD balances (from losses) to zero?

I have accrued some losses in simply trying several attempts to sell BTC in order to have some USD balance in case I needed it...frick'n spreads take a bite!   I seem to dimly remember something about 'Bitcoinica is not a trading house' or something like that and I am now wondering if that is what they were talking about.

[tvbcof]

...
Last, don't worry about leverage, if you're responsible. You aren't required to purchase on full leverage, only as much as you're comfortable with.

The tips are helpful and highly appreciated.  Enough so that I'd send yo Libertarian ass a BTC if you mention what kind of a special address starts with a '9' char.  I couldn't figure it out with a cursory bit of searching.

QQ:  Is it undoable (and unnecessary) to convert some of the BTC I put in into USD?  Is it the norm for someone who deals exclusively with BTC to just let Bitcoinica settle negative USD balances (from losses) to zero?

I have accrued some losses in simply trying several attempts to sell BTC in order to have some USD balance in case I needed it...frick'n spreads take a bite!   I seem to dimly remember something about 'Bitcoinica is not a trading house' or something like that and I am now wondering if that is what they were talking about.

Never mind on the question (about Bitcoinica...but I'm still interested in the address...)  After reading some of the material, I see the answer.

My main interest was in the stop loss to give me greater comfort in strategies on other exchanges.  But the spreads are to high.  Since I never had any interest in using margin and can self fund 100%, it seems that I am much better off writing a simple bot for this purpose.

Spending a little time and a few buck playing around with Bitcoinica was well worth it in helping me understand the mechanics of things.

[BTCurious]

My main interest was in the stop loss to give me greater comfort in strategies on other exchanges.  But the spreads are to high.  Since I never had any interest in using margin and can self fund 100%, it seems that I am much better off writing a simple bot for this purpose.

I thought this first too, but it depends. When there are really strong walls on either side of the price, I've actually seen a spread of 0.01 in bitcoinica. But when the price is changing fast, and the walls are far away, the spread is of course larger.

If you're trading with ~10 bitcoins or something in that order, it is indeed better to trade by hand or bot. There's usually some buy/sell wall close together of 10 BTC. But for 100 BTC, it's comparable to the market (plus a bit of markup).

[tvbcof]

My main interest was in the stop loss to give me greater comfort in strategies on other exchanges.  But the spreads are to high.  Since I never had any interest in using margin and can self fund 100%, it seems that I am much better off writing a simple bot for this purpose.

I thought this first too, but it depends. When there are really strong walls on either side of the price, I've actually seen a spread of 0.01 in bitcoinica. But when the price is changing fast, and the walls are far away, the spread is of course larger.

If you're trading with ~10 bitcoins or something in that order, it is indeed better to trade by hand or bot. There's usually some buy/sell wall close together of 10 BTC. But for 100 BTC, it's comparable to the market (plus a bit of markup).

I like to both splay out a trades over a range, and also move them around regularly depending on changes in market depth and times and such.  These adjustments cost nothing on an exchange.  It seems from my brief experiments with Bitcoinica that every adjustment one makes results in a pretty hefty fee.  Am I mis-interpreting something about this do you think?

[BTCurious]

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean, but: setting up stop/limit orders costs nothing. You only pay when they get executed, and then you're (roughly) certain they're executed at the price you set (unless a huge sell-off takes place).

[tvbcof]

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean, but: setting up stop/limit orders costs nothing. You only pay when they get executed, and then you're (roughly) certain they're executed at the price you set (unless a huge sell-off takes place).

Hmmm.

I funded my account with at BTC transfer.

The first thing I did was to see if tops worked on the buy side.  I set a buy stop for a few cents above the current price.  Fortunatly the market went up and sure enough, I made a purchase and lost a few cents as anticipated.

Then Bitcoinica whined about a negative USD balance and offered to settle from BTC.  Settled to zero USD.  Fine.

I then (ignorantly in retrospect) decided that it would be good to have some USD to avoid that hassle going forward.  I tried the big red 'sell' button which I thought was a market order.  That seemed to do nothing except result in some more losses and again a negative USD to settle.

I then tried a limit sell below market price.  That kept some trade active (and losing money) and when I canceled it I am again underwater in USD and need to settle.

Then I read various FAQ's and such and seem to discover that I am trying to pound a square peg into a round hole by trying to get a positive USD balance and that Bitcoinica can (or will) only perform this action to zero an account.

In the end, it seems that if I don't care to use anyone's money but my own, and if I get nicked a few percentage points to put in a bid (and another few percentage point to cancel it) then it is not really what I happen to need at this time for my purposes.

[BTCurious]

Yes, if you don't trade on a margin, /and/ have a bot to build your own stop/limit orders, /and/ never want to short bitcoins when you only have USD, or long bitcoins when you only have bitcoins, then there is no real benefit to bitcoinica.

I'm not quite sure which negative balances you were seeing. I funded my account with some USD and later some BTC as well, so I may not have seen it.

[tvbcof]

Yes, if you don't trade on a margin, /and/ have a bot to build your own stop/limit orders, /and/ never want to short bitcoins when you only have USD, or long bitcoins when you only have bitcoins, then there is no real benefit to bitcoinica.

I'm not quite sure which negative balances you were seeing. I funded my account with some USD and later some BTC as well, so I may not have seen it.

That was basically what I concluded, and I appreciate a confirmation from someone who clearly understands this stuff much better.

If/when I develop any strategies which would benefit by having a need to short, I'll re-visit things.  OTOH, I have a fairly large collection of BTC by this time, so here again it may make more sense to self-fund.  Not sure yet, and probably I will never need to be

[BitMagic]

That was basically what I concluded, and I appreciate a confirmation from someone who clearly understands this stuff much better.

If/when I develop any strategies which would benefit by having a need to short, I'll re-visit things.  OTOH, I have a fairly large collection of BTC by this time, so here again it may make more sense to self-fund.  Not sure yet, and probably I will never need to be

It's not a bad idea to hold long on bitcoins through the basic exchange, and then place a short order hedge on bitcoinica. The advantage is being able to adjust your hedge easily with room on the margin, and maintain gains during a price fall, still holding your BTC while you wait for an upswing.

And about the address, the sig is completely sarcastic; I don't want or need your money. I find the posting of addresses to be very much like pan-handling.

Your verbal thanks are enough for me.