Get $1 Risk-free Starting Bonus for Bitcoinica Here

[zhoutong]

Thank you everyone for your support. I have credited all of you.

Also thank you johnj for the explanation.

[saethan]

If this is still being offered, I registered as 'saethan'

I did hit 'buy' just curious to see what would happen if I did so with an empty account, hope that insufficient margin order isn't going to effect me in any way. 

I'm willing to throw a small portion of my mined btc at learning how this works.

[xenon5]

xenon5

[MaxSan]

MaxSan

Looking forwrad to trying out your service.

[zhoutong]

All credited!

Thank you for your support and happy trading!

[giarc]

ryled

[OgNasty]

Registered as OgNasty

[tinman951]

tinman951
I am looking forward to this.  With stop orders who can lose.

[zhoutong]

All credited with $1.

Thank you for your support!

[OgNasty]

Thank you for your support!

Looks like a great site.  I'm sure it will function as a great way to hedge any holdings while waiting for transfers to take place. 

I'd be interested to know how many shares are sold short at any given time.  Do you have any plans to make that information publicly available?

[zhoutong]

Thank you for your support!

Looks like a great site.  I'm sure it will function as a great way to hedge any holdings while waiting for transfers to take place. 

I'd be interested to know how many shares are sold short at any given time.  Do you have any plans to make that information publicly available?

It's not available because the information contains confidential financial data of Bitcoinica and our customers.

Since we only post the volume, but not the positions that our customers actually hold, a short squeeze that targets Bitcoinica is almost impossible.

[OgNasty]

a short squeeze that targets Bitcoinica is almost impossible.

I'm not sure that is an accurate statement.  Great site anyway though.

[tinman951]

zhoutong,
I tried searching for the fees (if any) that you charge.  Is it only the Mt Gox fees of 0.6% or do you have some as well?
Lets say I take that $1 and purchase bitcoin at the rate of $2.5228, then if there were no fees I would get 0.3963 BTC.  So the fee of 0.6% from Mt Gox would be 0.6% or about 0.02378 of those bitcoin.  How much would you take? 
An example would be appreciated.

[brendio]

Registered with username "brendio".

[zhoutong]

zhoutong,
I tried searching for the fees (if any) that you charge.  Is it only the Mt Gox fees of 0.6% or do you have some as well?
Lets say I take that $1 and purchase bitcoin at the rate of $2.5228, then if there were no fees I would get 0.3963 BTC.  So the fee of 0.6% from Mt Gox would be 0.6% or about 0.02378 of those bitcoin.  How much would you take? 
An example would be appreciated.

Currently you can't buy Bitcoins on Bitcoinica. Just like you can't buy oil by buying oil contracts. You are actually buying BTC/USD. (Perhaps you can read about Forex first.)

We don't charge fees. Everything is inclusive in the spread. Currently the price is 2.59988 / 2.66387, you can buy at 2.66387 and sell at 2.59988.

[marhjan]

I signed up for Bitcoinica as Marhjan

Looking forward to trying it out - thanks!

[skull88]

signed up.
Username: Skull88

[BarbosaR]

Username: BarbosaR
Thanks!

[zhoutong]

All credited!

Thank you very much!

[skull88]

You don't sell Bitcoins on Bitcoinica - for that you need to go to an exchange.

Bitcoinica lets you leverage 1:5 in BTCUSD.

I'll give a little example (though I'm a bit new myself), anyone can feel free to correct me:

You deposit 1 BTC when the market is at 5 USD/BTC. This gives you a margin of 5, with a tradable balance of 25. From here you can decide to long or short.  If you long it, you 'buy' BTC at X price in hopes it goes up.  If you long 3 BTC when it is at 5 USD, and it goes up to 6 USD, you've made 3 USD.  If you short it, you sell 3 BTC at 5 USD, and it goes down to 4 USD, you've made 3 USD.

But it isn't so easy.  On the right of your screen, you'll see that P/L, Net Balance, and Maintainence.

P/L is your current profit/loss.  Green is profit, red is loss. It'll start out as a loss every time (due to the spread).

Your Net Balance is your Margin + P/L. If your P/L is green, your margin will be higher than when you started. If it is red, your margin will be lower.

Your Maintainence is... somehting.  Not really sure.  BUT what I have read is that if your maintainence ever exceeds your Net Balance, you get a 'margin call'.  That means the market has gone too far from where you ordered and even with the 1:5 leverage you don't have enough to maintain your account - so it liquidates it. To prevent liquidations, be sure to set stop-loss orders.

Hope this helps!

edit: to clarify some things: you need to lock in your profits just like you stop-loss orders.  These are called 'limit' orders. Also you can choose to simply 'liquidate' your current position, which will lock in whatever the current market is (weather it be a profit or a loss)

Once your positions are cleared, you can choose to withdrawl MtGOX USD CODE or BTC.

Should have read this first, tried to sell 20 btc to test this out, really had no clue how I could get a balance of -$2.49857 and still had 20btc, while I sold 20 btc. lol 

Got the 1 $ credited to my account tho