Anyone know why the volume counter on Mt. Gox sometimes goes BACKWARDS??

[Rockford99]

or does that only happen on my computer when I refresh.  Gotta admit,  it's a tad odd.  Any explanations?

IOW, a few seconds or minutes later, LESS volume has been traded.

[1714024883]

1714024883

[MtGox_Dylan]

Hello,

The volume counter is a real time display of volume over the last 24 hours. It might occasionally decrease as particularly large orders drop off as the 24 hour clock progresses.

For example, you look up and see the volume is 100,000. But exactly 23:59 ago someone did a 1,000 bitcoin trade. If you wait a minute or two and refresh, you'll see the volume drop to 99,000 assuming no one had any orders fulfilled in those two minutes.

This is a fairly simple explanation, but hope it helps! If you'd like more detail just let us know, or contact support@mtgox.com.

[BTCurious]

Dylan:

That is a reasonable explanation, but it makes the counter utterly useless. How can I be sure that a small volume has traded a minute ago? Maybe it was a large volume, but there was also a large volume yesterday at the same time!

An alternative is to reset the counter to zero at every GMT, or to never reset the counter at all. Either way would allow you to take the difference in values between two times as the volume traded between those two times, which only seems logical to me, no?

[ThomasV]

bitcoincharts.com recently changed their volume from a daily reset to a 24h average.
I find it highly confusing.
 * the 24h volume is not consistent with the volume bars in the charts
 * it is not a good idea to change the semantics of a function some other people might rely upon

[Rockford99]

It's a bit goofy.  I understand your point - especially since it is an internationally 24 hour traded market.

[MtGox_Dylan]

Dylan:

That is a reasonable explanation, but it makes the counter utterly useless. How can I be sure that a small volume has traded a minute ago? Maybe it was a large volume, but there was also a large volume yesterday at the same time!

An alternative is to reset the counter to zero at every GMT, or to never reset the counter at all. Either way would allow you to take the difference in values between two times as the volume traded between those two times, which only seems logical to me, no?

If you'd like more granularity in your volume information, I hope you'll be pleased with our new trade data drop-down. Just click on the orange graph icon on the new Mt.Gox site, and you'll have real time data of trade volume available on any page.

I hope this helps!

[BTCurious]

Ah, new UI. Looks fancy!

The problem with the volume chart there, is that it's not real time. Data from your API is probably the most important to keep in a usable format.