Bitcoinica No Spread Charged for the next 12 hours.

[zhoutong]

The lowest price ever tracked today is only 4 cents, or 0.66% lower than the Mt. Gox low. I believe that unreasonable forced liquidations shouldn't happen again after the last algorithm change.

Your model is broken.
It acts often like a base ball glove.
When all logic say's now is the time to buy suddenly your buy price rises far above mtgox price and catches all the people falling for this trick.
Same goes for selling.
Quite often your spread just sits there, covering up all profit.
If this doesn't happen then you suddenly have liquidity problems.

So, either your algorithm is broken or you are not doing this fair.

Yesterday there was a spread of over 1 bitcoin.
That's bizar and totaly unbalanced.
And people have to wait untill your algorithm normalizes.
Often, when there is action, your algorithm just overreacts and covers the profits.
But by the time it normalizes there is no action on the exchanges.

This forum has even invented a term to describe this: Being Zhoutonged

Your algorithm has tons of hidden risk built in.
Now, the relation between the exchanges and your casino is unknown.
Please make this relation/algorithm PUBIC!.
This will make sure everyone knows the risks.
The risk comes not from the leverage but from the non-stability in your algorithm!
It resonates too much.

I tell you a public algorithm that you can use to test against ours. It's not identical, but a lot easier to handle:

Just estimate the average cost to buy/sell 100 BTC at Mt. Gox plus fees, considering slippage.

In reality, we have some minor adjustments on top of this to give customers better rates when possible.

You should never attempt to catch a spike on Bitcoinica using market orders. If there's no market depth at Mt. Gox, it's impossible to have a narrow spread on Bitcoinica. I can assure you that. It's not about profit at all.

Maybe someone can make a bucket shop with independent pricing power to compete with Bitcoinica.

99% of the time, Bitcoinica spreads are just as cheap as Mt. Gox fees. If you're the guy that hates Bitcoinica just because of the 1% time when spike happens, just go to Mt. Gox and see what happens when you attempt to buy/sell something fairly significant.

[zhoutong]

It's not his algorithm causing resonation, it's his users and others who are overreacting to every little market move.

Quite true.

All prices are given. We are now even releasing the charts. All price points are tradable with guaranteed liquidity.

Also, don't forget that a huge buy or sell can make the order book very thin for a brief period, and obviously everyone has to wait until Bitcoinica provides better prices when the orders re-establish.

The problem is that Bitcoinica is the most transparent pricing engine ever that tells you the *real* trading prices of Bitcoin, instead of the unreliable Mt. Gox "last price".

[Crypt_Current]

Maybe someone can make a bucket shop with independent pricing power to compete with Bitcoinica.

That's not a bad idea.  I bet it would still get customers even if it was blatantly advertised as a "bucket shop".

[Crypt_Current]

The problem is that Bitcoinica is the most transparent pricing engine ever that tells you the *real* trading prices of Bitcoin, instead of the unreliable Mt. Gox "last price".

Actually this "problem" can be used as an advantage when all the real-time charting services are down due to connection or whatever sort of problems... you can get an idea of price from Bitcoinica.

[chsados]

stewart, it wouldn't be too hard to write a bot in php to run stops for you, surprised nobody has made one yet.

Wish I had the smarts to do this, and what a great MT Gox trading help this would be. I would happily donate BTC for that kind of bot.

+1

[Crypt_Current]

I am a MT Gox trader, but am curious about Bitcoinica.

Does Bitcoinica give you the ability to do Stop Loss Orders? Can I trade like I would on Mt Gox with close spreads, or is the spread so far apart that its not worthwhile?

I cant seem to find an exchange that does stop loss orders with enough volume.

Bitcoinica provides "stop" orders -- the disadvantage is that if the next open market order is far away from your stop (big spikes), it will have provided little protection.  But I imagine a stop order used by a bot on mtgox would act similarly.

[cypherdoc]

Please make this relation/algorithm PUBIC!.
This will make sure everyone knows the risks.
The risk comes not from the leverage but from the non-stability in your algorithm!
It resonates too much.

sorry, i couldn't let this one go.

[tickets]

OK I finally created a bitcoinica account, and tried to fund it with a MtGox code, but something bad happened:

1: I generated a Mt Gox code for x BTC
2: copied code into bitcoinica deposit field and pressed "Redeem and Deposit" -- but I got an Error message.
3: Then I noticed I had not pressed the CONFIRM button on the Mt Gox Withdrawal, so I pressed Confirm, re-copied the code to bitcoinica, tried "Redeem and Deposit" again, and this time it worked.

4: However when I looked back at my MtGox balance, it was lower by 2x BTC, as if I had withdrawn x BTC twice, but only x were transferred to bitcoinica.

What went wrong here?  If I actually generated two codes by mistake, how do I recover that first code?  I don't see it in my mtgox history...

thanks

[Crypt_Current]

OK I finally created a bitcoinica account, and tried to fund it with a MtGox code, but something bad happened:

1: I generated a Mt Gox code for x BTC
2: copied code into bitcoinica deposit field and pressed "Redeem and Deposit" -- but I got an Error message.
3: Then I noticed I had not pressed the CONFIRM button on the Mt Gox Withdrawal, so I pressed Confirm, re-copied the code to bitcoinica, tried "Redeem and Deposit" again, and this time it worked.

4: However when I looked back at my MtGox balance, it was lower by 2x BTC, as if I had withdrawn x BTC twice, but only x were transferred to bitcoinica.

What went wrong here?  If I actually generated two codes by mistake, how do I recover that first code?  I don't see it in my mtgox history...

thanks

I've never had that happen personally, but have always been slightly afraid of the possibility of something like this.  You need to talk to Zhou or Jon at Bitcoinica and/or someone at Gox.

[byronbb]

Maybe someone can make a bucket shop with independent pricing power to compete with Bitcoinica.

That's not a bad idea.  I bet it would still get customers even if it was blatantly advertised as a "bucket shop".

Agreed, that's why I ran out and got bitcoinbucketshop.com earlier today.   I think there is a market for low limit BTC price speculation. This would allow low spreads and lots of opportunity to gamble.

[Crypt_Current]

Please make this relation/algorithm PUBIC!.
This will make sure everyone knows the risks.
The risk comes not from the leverage but from the non-stability in your algorithm!
It resonates too much.

sorry, i couldn't let this one go.

This is absolutely ludicrous.  It's the same as asking someone to write you a trade bot for free, then explain how you wrote it.

[Zotia]

OK I finally created a bitcoinica account, and tried to fund it with a MtGox code, but something bad happened:

1: I generated a Mt Gox code for x BTC
2: copied code into bitcoinica deposit field and pressed "Redeem and Deposit" -- but I got an Error message.
3: Then I noticed I had not pressed the CONFIRM button on the Mt Gox Withdrawal, so I pressed Confirm, re-copied the code to bitcoinica, tried "Redeem and Deposit" again, and this time it worked.

4: However when I looked back at my MtGox balance, it was lower by 2x BTC, as if I had withdrawn x BTC twice, but only x were transferred to bitcoinica.

What went wrong here?  If I actually generated two codes by mistake, how do I recover that first code?  I don't see it in my mtgox history...

thanks

What do you mean it doesn't show up in your history?


Let's say you had X coins and tried to withdraw Y coins.


Does it show you withdrew Y coins twice, but give the same code?
Does it show you withdrew Y coins once, but change the balance by 2Y?
Does it show you withdrew Y coins once, and that were mistaken about what X was?
Does it show you withdrew Y coins twice, but not give a code for one of them?


There are many possibilities.  You will need to be more specific.

[tickets]

I resolved the problem -- not sure what was wrong really, but I had created 2 codes from MtGox.

the first code just generated an error  when I tried to deposit it into bitcoinica... the second one was OK.  So, I returned the first code as a deposit to MtGox, and generated a new code, which did work to deposit in bitcoinica.

So I'm exploring bitcoinica  --- the site offers leverage for day-trading type levels, and seems to encourage short term trading - but the spread is WAY to big to be comfortable, even for swing-trading... from the moment you start building a position, you are more than 1% underwater.

A spread of say .25 % or .3% would be workable in this situation, but at the moment I think the site is only useable for medium-term swing trades. 

Also - they advertise that stoploss functions are available, but I cannot find that at all - frustrating..
do any of you know how to find the stop sets on bitcoinica?

[notme]

I resolved the problem -- not sure what was wrong really, but I had created 2 codes from MtGox.

the first code just generated an error  when I tried to deposit it into bitcoinica... the second one was OK.  So, I returned the first code as a deposit to MtGox, and generated a new code, which did work to deposit in bitcoinica.

So I'm exploring bitcoinica  --- the site offers leverage for day-trading type levels, and seems to encourage short term trading - but the spread is WAY to big to be comfortable, even for swing-trading... from the moment you start building a position, you are more than 1% underwater.

A spread of say .25 % or .3% would be workable in this situation, but at the moment I think the site is only useable for medium-term swing trades. 

Also - they advertise that stoploss functions are available, but I cannot find that at all - frustrating..
do any of you know how to find the stop sets on bitcoinica?

Lengthen your time frame.  I trade stocks $100 at a time with $9 trades.... it takes time, but you can do ok.  Sometimes the house makes more than you do, but you have to spend money to make money.  Stops are under the "Advanced Placement" tab.

[tickets]

Have fun with that :-) 
 
I agree that bitcoinica is more appropriate for longer timeframes, my point is that it encourages intraday trading.

I looked under Advanced Placement .. I dont see any way to add stops though, what am I missing?

[notme]

Have fun with that :-) 
 
I agree that bitcoinica is more appropriate for longer timeframes, my point is that it encourages intraday trading.

I looked under Advanced Placement .. I dont see any way to add stops though, what am I missing?

Order Type: Stop

But yeah, it sucks.  I wish I didn't have to pay $9 for one computer to trade with another computer, but that is how USD markets work.  I've done much better with GLBSE where I can trade for free.

[tickets]

Geez... okay a stoploss is an 'order type'.. wonderful.

But check this out. It's broken and just lost me money!

http://awesomescreenshot.com/092rrbs6e

I selected Order Type of Trailing Stop, read the instructions, set a price of 5.6 (below the current price of about 6.85) then pressed Buy .. then tried it again for a traling stop at $6.3

It EXECUTED this as a BUY transaction AT MARKET!!  I now have 20 BTC purchased at 6.93 which I did not ask for. 

Looks like a very serious bug, has anyone tested this code before releasing it on a public who could lose some big $ due to such bugs??

[tickets]

plus to add injury to damage, I would now have to take a loss just to reverse their error...

DO NOT USE THIS SITE YET

[notme]

plus to add injury to damage, I would now have to take a loss just to reverse their error...

DO NOT USE THIS SITE YET

Trailing Stops are known broken right now.  Why he hasn't disabled them until it's fixed IDK, but he has posted about this several times in various threads, including the main Bitcoinica thread.  Coincidentally, that would be a better place to continue any discussion since the promotion for this thread has ended.

[tickets]

You really can't expect people to come read a forum to find out that the site doesn't actually work.

You can put real money into it and lose big due to functionality that should never have been released to the public.  That says the developers are pretty clueless about software release procedures, especially for transactional systems dealing with real money.   

There is nothing even on the page to indicate that the functions don't work.
http://awesomescreenshot.com/0d9rrdl98

Worse than simply not working, the StopLoss function will execute other transactions guaranteed to lose you money...

The main way to make money on bitcoinia at the moment is to uncover their identities and hold them liable for damages.