bitcoinica's fraud actions

[vragnaroda]

fulfilling unreasonable requests isn't a sustainable measure of customer service.

That's all that really needed to be said.

[zhoutong]

However, we respect your freedom of trading.

then remove leverage limitations

It's for protection of ourselves. We can't liquidate a 40,000 BTC position with 4% margin requirement.

If we increase the margin requirement to the likely slippage amount, then 10:1 will instantly result in margin call.

that make sense but current situation cant go on much time because using 2.5 and paying this spreads and on top of that you can add that order refresh rate is way to slow(one refresh per second can be awesome but i dont know how the server will tank that) or the chunk set 50btc is way to little, there is not much point in having many bitcoins on bitcoinica

We are improving the system to provide dynamic liquidity instead of the fixed 50 btc.

Thanks for the comments!

[legitnick]

[guruvan]

Zhoutong, wouldn't it help your liquidity if you could increase order & trade frequency? I'm sure that would be a natural result if you could find a way to decrease the spread some. I know I'd be able to trade more - a $0.10 - $0.20 spread inside a $0.12 - $0.15 trading range doesn't leave much room to trade  (unless you're trading huge, probably over-leveraged positions)

I understand that with as much leverage as you extend your customers, you have to protect yourself from significant swings, too.

I also have to wonder if maybe you ought to raise the  requirements for BTC held in the currency account - severe fluctuations in the spot price of BTC/USD send heavily leveraged accounts holding (mostly) BTC spiraling down. It is often not wise to leverage the purchase of a risky asset with more of that same asset.

I have to admit, I cussed your pricing bot the other day, too - slippage was IMO, pretty steep. But I looked back through the books, and slippage the other direction was just as steep - a dead even wash from how I see it. I'm sure it could use some improvements, but that won't help with the fundamental issue of BTC holders being overleveraged.