What is this spike?

[cloon]

What if bitcoinica has enough backed up btc that they dont need to buy the 18000?
Its ony a loss for them and i thik to run a buissnes like bitcoinica you have enough own capital to get over it without big trouble

[dooglus]

Oh wait, it's because an order did not get filled?

This is simpler than I'm making it out to be, right?

If you were to place a small buy order at Gox offering $10 for 1 BTC, you would expect to get matched with the cheapest currently unmatched sell order, and end up getting your 1 BTC for $5.14 or so.

Occasionally, due to a persistent bug in Gox's code, it seems that buy orders are being accidentally matched with higher sell orders, not the cheapest ones.  So you see spikes like in OP's chart.

[Crypt_Current]

Oh wait, it's because an order did not get filled?

This is simpler than I'm making it out to be, right?

If you were to place a small buy order at Gox offering $10 for 1 BTC, you would expect to get matched with the cheapest currently unmatched sell order, and end up getting your 1 BTC for $5.14 or so.

Occasionally, due to a persistent bug in Gox's code, it seems that buy orders are being accidentally matched with higher sell orders, not the cheapest ones.  So you see spikes like in OP's chart.

Thank you!  Nothing like newly found sparkling clarity

[bitcoinBull]

Oh wait, it's because an order did not get filled?

This is simpler than I'm making it out to be, right?

If you were to place a small buy order at Gox offering $10 for 1 BTC, you would expect to get matched with the cheapest currently unmatched sell order, and end up getting your 1 BTC for $5.14 or so.

Occasionally, due to a persistent bug in Gox's code, it seems that buy orders are being accidentally matched with higher sell orders, not the cheapest ones.  So you see spikes like in OP's chart.

Thank you!  Nothing like newly found sparkling clarity

Sounds like the trade-matching algorithm sometimes doesn't keep up, or gets out of sync, with bursty ask quote additions/cancellations.

[molecular]

Oh wait, it's because an order did not get filled?

This is simpler than I'm making it out to be, right?

If you were to place a small buy order at Gox offering $10 for 1 BTC, you would expect to get matched with the cheapest currently unmatched sell order, and end up getting your 1 BTC for $5.14 or so.

Occasionally, due to a persistent bug in Gox's code, it seems that buy orders are being accidentally matched with higher sell orders, not the cheapest ones.  So you see spikes like in OP's chart.

thanks for the hint, I remember that bug being an issue a long while back now.

Doesn't sound that hard to fix, does it?

[molecular]

if it's the same but, let me shed more light:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1032/what-happened-with-mtgox-on-2011-9-12

kind of entertaining quote from above link:

so there IS some underlying bug which was triggered that caused invalid order matching
<@MagicalTux> yes, but it requires a large amount of funds to be triggered
<@MagicalTux> normal users, unless millionaire, wouldn't trigger it
< upb> must be some kind of integer overflow ;-)
<@MagicalTux> it happens when an order executes way too many orders at once
<@MagicalTux> I'm adding some code to avoid this from happening, but nobody in their right mind would do that

[Crypt_Current]

if it's the same but, let me shed more light:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1032/what-happened-with-mtgox-on-2011-9-12

kind of entertaining quote from above link:

so there IS some underlying bug which was triggered that caused invalid order matching
<@MagicalTux> yes, but it requires a large amount of funds to be triggered
<@MagicalTux> normal users, unless millionaire, wouldn't trigger it
< upb> must be some kind of integer overflow ;-)
<@MagicalTux> it happens when an order executes way too many orders at once
<@MagicalTux> I'm adding some code to avoid this from happening, but nobody in their right mind would do that

WHEW, good thing everyone in this community is in their "right mind" 

[bb113]

well now this is happening multiple times a day

[sukiho]

yes, happened again today, quite annoying really, what use is an exchange if their charts aren't real?

[mysteriousawake]

if it's the same but, let me shed more light:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1032/what-happened-with-mtgox-on-2011-9-12

kind of entertaining quote from above link:

so there IS some underlying bug which was triggered that caused invalid order matching
<@MagicalTux> yes, but it requires a large amount of funds to be triggered
<@MagicalTux> normal users, unless millionaire, wouldn't trigger it
< upb> must be some kind of integer overflow ;-)
<@MagicalTux> it happens when an order executes way too many orders at once
<@MagicalTux> I'm adding some code to avoid this from happening, but nobody in their right mind would do that

WHEW, good thing everyone in this community is in their "right mind" 

And being triggered by small amounts of btc executions