Flash Crash Question...

[Obi-Wan Coinobi]

Last week when that flash crash happened and the price went down to $100, I was kicking myself for not having a low buy order in. My question is...what are the chances of an order even being filled when the price rises so quickly?

[GeniuSxBoY]

100% if someone matches your buy/sell amount

[Obi-Wan Coinobi]

100% if someone matches your buy/sell amount

So it would probably make more sense to choose an even number like $155 rather than $155.98 right?

Also, I'm new at this...and all I needed was knowledge that a flash crash could even happen and I'd have my house paid off 

Hindsight is 20/20!

[GeniuSxBoY]

It's strategy.

$155 is a nice even number. That means other people will pick that number. If other people pick that number first, their orders will be filled first.

If you want to set a bid at $155, but there are 2000 buy orders at that number, then you can place your bid at 155.00001 and your order will be filled in front of all the $155.0000 bids.

[Obi-Wan Coinobi]

It's strategy.

$155 is a nice even number. That means other people will pick that number. If other people pick that number first, their orders will be filled first.

If you want to set a bid at $155, but there are 2000 buy orders at that number, then you can place your bid at 155.00001 and your order will be filled in front of all the $155.0000 bids.

Thanks 

[tutkarz]

You should not regret that you didn't placed buy order. You never know if crash will be flash and won't end up at $0.01.

[Obi-Wan Coinobi]

You should not regret that you didn't placed buy order. You never know if crash will be flash and won't end up at $0.01.

Which actually brings up another good question. If I took a margin position at $100, it crashed to $1 and wen't back up to $500...would I be force liquidated if it all happened within a minute or 2?

[GeniuSxBoY]

yes

[MatTheCat]

You should not regret that you didn't placed buy order. You never know if crash will be flash and won't end up at $0.01.

Which actually brings up another good question. If I took a margin position at $100, it crashed to $1 and wen't back up to $500...would I be force liquidated if it all happened within a minute or 2?

YES!

Your liquidation price would be hit, your exchange would take all your coins and buy/sell at market price.

Also worthy to mention, is that a lot of people NEVER got their orders filled on BTC-E/Bitfinex during the flash crash to $100. Also during this time, the popular traders tool/bot (MT4) stopped working for these two sites, which means if you were relying on that (i.e. keeping your stop losses/limit orders hidden from exchange to prevent nefarious entities with access to this information), then you also wouldn't have gotten any of your orders filled.

Bitcoinland is full of fucking crooks and there is nearly always more than meets the eye to things that go on or erratic chart movements. Just cos you seen a flash crash to $100, don't automatically assume that you could have benefited from it as a lot of people should have, but didn't. Perhaps it wasn't a real sell-off at all, but just a numbers hack on the exchange, which resulted in a lot of people being robbed.