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Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

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Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#51

Post by headcanon »

captainmuon wrote: post #35
elnygren wrote: post #5

It takes two to tango. A lot of people lost a lof money because they got margin called at ~$2 for a commodity that is worth ~$300. https://twitter.com/elnygren/status/877660177406865408 On the other hand, a lot of people made a lot money since there are buy orders that wen through at less than 1% of the real price.

Wait, so basically I could create a buy order for $2, leave it sitting there, and wait until there is another crash [1]? If there is no crash, then nothing happens. For good measure, do it for every currency on the exchange. Is there any risk or downside to this? Seems like buying a lottery ticket for free. ---- [1] ... or someboy fat-fingers an order - although I think in that case I think still the higher bidders w…

The downside is that when you put in a limit buy the exchange puts your money into escrow until the order is cancelled or filled. Since a crash like that is unlikely to happen (first time on that exchange I believe) it just means you have money tied up when it could be put to better use

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#52

Post by unknown_apostle »

captainmuon wrote: post #35
elnygren wrote: post #5

It takes two to tango. A lot of people lost a lof money because they got margin called at ~$2 for a commodity that is worth ~$300. https://twitter.com/elnygren/status/877660177406865408 On the other hand, a lot of people made a lot money since there are buy orders that wen through at less than 1% of the real price.

Wait, so basically I could create a buy order for $2, leave it sitting there, and wait until there is another crash [1]? If there is no crash, then nothing happens. For good measure, do it for every currency on the exchange. Is there any risk or downside to this? Seems like buying a lottery ticket for free. ---- [1] ... or someboy fat-fingers an order - although I think in that case I think still the higher bidders w…

Yes it's sometimes called a stink bid.

Lots of contexts where this kind of bidding is a good idea. E.g. after a really bad year you can expect big price swings around tax loss selling season (nov-dec), where people take out their frustration on their worst performers. Doesn't always work but if you've already identified a couple of trainwreck stocks that you think deserve a second chance, getting a stink bid filled for one or more of those stocks can make a very big difference later on.

Of course, the Ethereum flash crash is on a different level :-)

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#53

Post by yebyen »

iak8god wrote: post #43
MichaelGG wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ASICs are for Ethereum? A quick search says GPUs are still popular?

There are no ASICs for Ethereum. It's currently impossible to get latest gen GPUs from any retailer, or for anything close to retail price on eBay, because there's a mad rush to get into Ether mining.

That's incredible, I remember when it was impossible to get ASIC miners from ButterflyLabs and we were all up in arms because of their inappropriate behavior. That was a niche vendor producing items that had basically no other uses.

GPU makers didn't sign up to build machines that print money. But it turns out when you do make machines that can print money, people tend to buy them at a rate faster than you can make them! Right away, whether or not you did it on purpose.

(I did get my ASIC Jalapeño miners from BFL before they were busted up, I did order more when they came around and offered to let everyone order more, and I still did manage to earn a pittance over and above my initial investment on both batches, regardless of the absolutely ridiculous production and shipping delays.)

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#54

Post by lossolo »

zer0tonin wrote: post #37
ericfrederich wrote: post #24

I wish they would all crash and stay crashed so GPU prices will come down again ;-)

Now most miners are using ASIC instead of GPU.

There are no ASICS for ethereum and probably you will not benefit from them a lot more than from GPU becasue they use scrypt with 2GB+ tables instead of sha256 (like in bitcoin).

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#55

Post by koolba »

headcanon wrote: post #51
captainmuon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so basically I could create a buy order for $2, leave it sitting there, and wait until there is another crash [1]? If there is no crash, then nothing happens. For good measure, do it for every currency on the exchange. Is there any risk or downside to this? Seems like buying a lottery ticket for free. ---- [1] ... or someboy fat-fingers an order - although I think in that case I think still the higher bidders w…

The downside is that when you put in a limit buy the exchange puts your money into escrow until the order is cancelled or filled. Since a crash like that is unlikely to happen (first time on that exchange I believe) it just means you have money tied up when it could be put to better use

And they could reverse the trades and null them out on both sides. Just because the order gets filled doesn't means it'll complete. Until you get the asset, sell it, and get your cash out of there, you're still at risk.

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#56

Post by clarkmoody »

lbotos wrote: post #23
Analemma_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even market orders on highly liquid, perfectly well-understood things like forex can bite you in the ass; see all the levered people who got wiped out when Switzerland dropped their peg to the Euro. Stop orders on cryptocurrency are just pure idiocy.

I'm not following why stop orders on Crypto are idiocy?

GP probably means stop -> market orders. When the stop price is reached, the order converts to market.

Various brokers and exchanges offer more types of stop orders, such as stop -> limit, where you set a limit price, and your order becomes a limit order after the stop price is reached.

Of course crypto exchanges take forever to implement new order types, and I'm not sure any of them have stop -> limit.

Also, stop orders don't work in general in a slipping market because liquidity vanishes from the book.

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#57

Post by yebyen »

maxerickson wrote: post #38
captainmuon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so basically I could create a buy order for $2, leave it sitting there, and wait until there is another crash [1]? If there is no crash, then nothing happens. For good measure, do it for every currency on the exchange. Is there any risk or downside to this? Seems like buying a lottery ticket for free. ---- [1] ... or someboy fat-fingers an order - although I think in that case I think still the higher bidders w…

You risk your buy going through and the price never recovering to above $2.

If you bought 1000 ether at $2, you'd be out $2000. If it is a glitch and the price does recover, you've made about $340,000. (Sounds like a scenario out of a post from the sub-reddit /r/LateStageCapitalism, doesn't it!)

Of course if you do this on every exchange, you multiply your risk by the number of exchanges, and your reward probably only comes out of a single one of those exchanges, unless it is the real deal "flash-crash" coin-wide permanent glitch-out end-of-the-world everything's hosed and the price is never coming back, in which case you lost $2000·N which sounds a little worse.

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#58

Post by headcanon »

gcb0 wrote: post #16

this is only "possible" because etherium has even less real value than btc. btc still have intrinsic value as it is traded for chinese expating money, scared Venezuelans, American weekend drug users, etc. etherium exists for the sole purpose of playing investing with btc. everyone I know who owns etherium bought after they decided to buy btc and got a price hike on their investment so they flip btc and etherium inste…

Today, yes, more people accept BTC for real-world goods than ETH. I, and most ETH holders, are betting that tomorrow that may not be the case. The strength of a cryptocurrency is the strength of it's platform, and Ethereum is basically Google to Bitcoins Yahoo, or Facebook to Myspace, take your pick.

The reason? It's an applications platform, not just a currency. It brings fundamental innovations in decentralized computing that means it can reach places Bitcoin never could. And when that happens, the utility (and price :) of ETH will match.

Re: Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10c on GDAX after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

#59

Post by danmaz74 »

clarkmoody wrote: post #56
lbotos wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following why stop orders on Crypto are idiocy?

GP probably means stop -> market orders. When the stop price is reached, the order converts to market. Various brokers and exchanges offer more types of stop orders, such as stop -> limit, where you set a limit price, and your order becomes a limit order after the stop price is reached. Of course crypto exchanges take forever to implement new order types, and I'm not sure any of them have stop -> limit. Also, stop or…

Don't know about the other ones, but the biggest exchange for alts, poloniex, has stop-limit.
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