Bitcoinica: How it works

[Otoh]

I wasn't answering you. I'm trying to find out how it works too.

ah OK sry, btw 1 Btc reward to first person who can explain the above couple of questions to me, also is it normally better to sell one's position little by little rather than liquidate (assuming the market is relatively stable) & is the end result the same, many thanks

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[cypherdoc]

Ragged Monk:  if perfect English is so important to you, why don't you get your ass over here and answer all our questions that are piling up cuz it appears Zhou sure won't or can't.

yes, i am whining again.

[chunglam]

I don't understand sorry, I started with a 300Btc deposit & went long 300 a while back, when the price rose I increased the number of bitcoins that I was long with leverage now I would like to know if I can retain my original 300 Btc long position  by selling bitcoins or do I have to liquidate the whole position (or sell all little by little) in order to release the $ profit for withdrawal - sry to be such a trading noob

Yes, you have to liquidate all to realize your profit.

I asked Zhou this question and his answer in other thread

Hi Zhoutong, could you let us partially cash out profit from our position? Currently, we have to liquidate our position to make the profit move into USD balance, I would like to buy real BTCs using my profit balance.

All your unrealized profits are automatically leveraged again for trading.

Your tradable balance should already include the profits.

Maybe he wants to withdraw some of the profit to his wallet outside Bitcoinica.

Sorry for my misunderstanding.

If you have profits to support your position, technically you can already use the Exchange or withdraw feature to do whatever you want, just like the real USD balance. However, the limit is your actual USD balance, as it can't be negative.

Unfortunately but we don't offer the service to let you withdraw more USD than what you have.

[alan2here]

A redesign of the interface, if only to reword things, but idealy more thorough than that would solve most of the problems.

[chunglam]

also is it normally better to sell one's position little by little rather than liquidate (assuming the market is relatively stable) & is the end result the same, many thanks

I would suggest to set limit sell order to decrease your long position, take more time but better price

[Otoh]

many thanks to all, yes that's what i have been doing - placing limit sell orders for Btc 50 at Btc 0.005 intervals somewhere above the instant sell price & when they get filled on spikes or bitcoinica balancing their books then I'm getting a much better price, better even than on Mt.Gox live at times

[cypherdoc]

I don't understand sorry, I started with a 300Btc deposit & went long 300 a while back, when the price rose I increased the number of bitcoins that I was long with leverage now I would like to know if I can retain my original 300 Btc long position  by selling bitcoins or do I have to liquidate the whole position (or sell all little by little) in order to release the $ profit for withdrawal - sry to be such a trading noob

Yes, you have to liquidate all to realize your profit.

I asked Zhou this question and his answer in other thread

Hi Zhoutong, could you let us partially cash out profit from our position? Currently, we have to liquidate our position to make the profit move into USD balance, I would like to buy real BTCs using my profit balance.

All your unrealized profits are automatically leveraged again for trading.

Your tradable balance should already include the profits.

Maybe he wants to withdraw some of the profit to his wallet outside Bitcoinica.

Sorry for my misunderstanding.

If you have profits to support your position, technically you can already use the Exchange or withdraw feature to do whatever you want, just like the real USD balance. However, the limit is your actual USD balance, as it can't be negative.

Unfortunately but we don't offer the service to let you withdraw more USD than what you have.

this is really too bad.  in one of my bond accts, when the positions move up a certain % in interest payments, i will siphon the interest earned to a money mkt leaving the original investment.  this is how most retired seniors work their accts (i'm not one:))

in my stock acct, if the positions appreciate by a certain %, i then am free to sell off whatever % i want to realize the profit.  i usually will sell just the profit portion leaving my original positions.  this way i can still be in the game while living off the profits.  standard stuff.

[gewure]

.. is it only me or are spreads really getting bigger and bigger? 

i don't get it at all, why spreads are that high on bitcoinica, if it is the second largest 'exchange' (i know it is no real one) by volume.

spreads as high as 20 cent, sometimes 30 and i have even seen some higher than 40 cents.. just insane.

zhouthong, do something about this, seriously!

..

[Mushoz]

.. is it only me or are spreads really getting bigger and bigger? 

i don't get it at all, why spreads are that high on bitcoinica, if it is the second largest 'exchange' (i know it is no real one) by volume.

spreads as high as 20 cent, sometimes 30 and i have even seen some higher than 40 cents.. just insane.

zhouthong, do something about this, seriously!

..

There's no depth in a 10 cents range on Mtgox, so they need those spreads. Spreads will generally become much smaller once we've been "stable" for a while, which IMO, isn't going to happen anytime soon

[gewure]

.. is it only me or are spreads really getting bigger and bigger? 

i don't get it at all, why spreads are that high on bitcoinica, if it is the second largest 'exchange' (i know it is no real one) by volume.

spreads as high as 20 cent, sometimes 30 and i have even seen some higher than 40 cents.. just insane.

zhouthong, do something about this, seriously!

..

There's no depth in a 10 cents range on Mtgox, so they need those spreads. Spreads will generally become much smaller once we've been "stable" for a while, which IMO, isn't going to happen anytime soon

lol - are you going to tell me, they need a 40-cent-spread if i want to trade.. 1BTC?! ..

i think zhoutong should open up his order book - at least he should open up the book for the LIMIT and STOP orders, presupposed there are enought orders to avoid serious market manipulation (aka 'zhouthonging' the shit out of ppl with heavy leveraged positions)

[Mushoz]

.. is it only me or are spreads really getting bigger and bigger?  

i don't get it at all, why spreads are that high on bitcoinica, if it is the second largest 'exchange' (i know it is no real one) by volume.

spreads as high as 20 cent, sometimes 30 and i have even seen some higher than 40 cents.. just insane.

zhouthong, do something about this, seriously!

..

There's no depth in a 10 cents range on Mtgox, so they need those spreads. Spreads will generally become much smaller once we've been "stable" for a while, which IMO, isn't going to happen anytime soon

lol - are you going to tell me, they need a 40-cent-spread if i want to trade.. 1BTC?! ..

i think zhoutong should open up his order book - at least he should open up the book for the LIMIT and STOP orders, presupposed there are enought orders to avoid serious market manipulation (aka 'zhouthonging' the shit out of ppl with heavy leveraged positions)

The spread is only 10 cents, and second of all they need those spreads for up to 50 BTC offers. They can't start offering different spreads for different sized orders, it would become a mess. Btw, for those low numbers you should really just use Mtgox. Much better for small trades. Only use Bitcoinica when you're using a lot more money to play around with and if you want to use leverage.

[Mushoz]

can anyone explain me how partial liquidation is working

If you partially liquidate a position you won't get the profit/loss calculated into your account funds yet, but your tradeable balance does increase, meaning you can use those funds for new positions if you want.

Edit: Actually, you don't have to liquidate for that. Your tradeable balance increases/decreases as your P/L goes up and down as well.

[gewure]

mushoz: im long at the moment with some 50+ coins..

offering different spreads for different ordervolumes would be imo no mess at all,  but much more accurate and fair. basically, that is how free markets form their *price.

[Otoh]

over the last 6 hours I have closed most of my long position through limit sales, I was going to close it all out but decided to leave some now as I kind of believe I may understand some of how bitcoinica works,  I have 300 Btc on deposit there & now no leverage, down from 1343 Btc long to just 243 now, sitting on a healthy unrealised profit which I can't access until I fully close out the position which is fine as I don't need it right now & anyway thought that those 300 Btc were already probably lost over the last few days wild swings - I must have been close to being zhoutonged quite a few times, so this on paper at least covers my big shorting losses from over thanksgiving & also covers the original cost of 170 of the 300 Btc I've deposited there, I wondering now if I can withdraw those 300 Btc & just use the unrealised profit as security for my position - I'm guessing so but any input would be much appreciated

[Dan The Man]

ah OK sry, btw 1 Btc reward to first person who can explain the above couple of questions to me, also is it normally better to sell one's position little by little rather than liquidate (assuming the market is relatively stable) & is the end result the same, many thanks

I don't understand sorry, I started with a 300Btc deposit & went long 300 a while back, when the price rose I increased the number of bitcoins that I was long with leverage now I would like to know if I can retain my original 300 Btc long position  by selling bitcoins or do I have to liquidate the whole position (or sell all little by little) in order to release the $ profit for withdrawal - sry to be such a trading noob

You can retain your long position by selling, either at market value or with limit orders. The profits go into lowering the base price of your position rather than into your account. So if you had a 300 BTC long position at a low price before, you will now have 300 BTC at an even lower price.

[Dan The Man]

over the last 6 hours I have closed most of my long position through limit sales, I was going to close it all out but decided to leave some now as I kind of believe I may understand some of how bitcoinica works,  I have 300 Btc on deposit there & now no leverage, down from 1343 Btc long to just 243 now, sitting on a healthy unrealised profit which I can't access until I fully close out the position which is fine as I don't need it right now & anyway thought that those 300 Btc were already probably lost over the last few days wild swings - I must have been close to being zhoutonged quite a few times, so this on paper at least covers my big shorting losses from over thanksgiving & also covers the original cost of 170 of the 300 Btc I've deposited there, I wondering now if I can withdraw those 300 Btc & just use the unrealised profit as security for my position - I'm guessing so but any input would be much appreciated

Go to withdrawal and see what it says. Bitcoinica will inform you what your maximum withdrawal amount is. If it's 300, then yes you can withdraw all of it. I would assume that this to be the case if the profit covers the margin. It is your net value that matters when determining margin calls/liquidation.

[Otoh]

many thanks both, yes I've been discovering getting limit sales met reduces my long position & lowers it's base price, almost like locking in profit - not quite as I can't withdraw it but locking down risk a lot & yes it will let me send the original 300 btc back to Gox np, so that still leaves about half my net value which is plenty to safeguard my remaining 243 long position - it's about the same as when I originally deposited the 300, so now I can effectively play with just the house's money (or that of peeps who got short squeezed out) with no risk of my Btc or capital except that until I close out the position I don't get the $s to cover my thanksgiving losses or the funds to cover the cost of 170 of the 300 bitcoins that I gambled with that I am up atm

[Otoh]

hmm, when I say np it's actually "Pending approval"  "Mt. Gox limit reached temporarily" for a while now - 15 minutes & counting
but I guess it will clear eventually - I hope    that is...

30 minutes now, how long is 'temporarily' I wonder
same thing happening with $s as I had just $30 odd there too that I tried to convert to a Goxy code over 19 minutes ago

It's like the bloody hotel california

You can checkout any time you like,
But your bitcoins can never leave!

[ArsenShnurkov]

how long is 'temporarily' I wonder

mt gox limit is per 24 hours. so it can take few days

[Otoh]

both withdrawals have now been in the zhoutong kung fu wallet grip hold for over 1 hour  

the message then defaults to "about 1 hour ago"

some info link would be more professional, like eta of when the funds might actually be expected to get released