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An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

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Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#241

Post by heptathorp »

sp821543 wrote: post #186
csomar wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exchange doesn't sell/buy. It just connects the buyers/sellers. There are brokers that do that but you can't call them an exchange. I also think regulation prevent exchanges from trading on their own exchange to avoid front-running and since they have lots of information about the users/deposits/etc...

From coinbase TOS: You acknowledge that the quoted Buy Price Conversion Rate may not be the same as the Sell Price Conversion Rate at any given time, and that Coinbase may add a margin or “spread” to the quoted Conversion Rate.

If that's in the GDAX TOS, it's an unnecessary disclaimer. The best Bid and Ask are by definition not the same price, otherwise one or the other order would have been at market and matched against the other, and there is always a non-zero spread between the two.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#242

Post by acchow »

busterc wrote: post #117

I found this comment, by Richard Berger on SeekingAlpha, compelling: > STOP! and think about what this author has revealed. Even IF Tether is NOT running a fraud, the arbitrage positions that automatically exist between Bitcoin and any tether are real and do create incentive to create an arbitraged feedback loop whereby a pegged tether between Bitcoin - any_generic_tether - USD does exist and self feeds, driving up B…

Ok, now I question the validity of everything I've ever read on Seeking Alpha.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#243

Post by FireBeyond »

ncallaway wrote: post #202
um_ya wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they prove it? Twitter a picture of the bank balance?

At the very least, inform the public about which banking institutions they are currently using ever since Wells Fargo dropped out. Contracting a reputable firm to conduct an in-depth audit and publicly releasing the results would also be a useful step.

And not refuse to name banks without an NDA signed and in place...

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#244

Post by Cyberdog »

empath75 wrote: post #180
panarky wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bear in mind that this is bitcoin It's still a market, so market logic should apply. > get rich quick with bitcoin I see the same shit with real estate. > sufficient people buying tethers at face value It's a market. Smart money can sell tethers. When there's information that all market participants know, the market price should reflect that information.

Markets are wrong all the time . See the dotcom crash, the 2008 crash, etc.

So a crash is a market being wrong?

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#245

Post by runeks »

panarky wrote: post #112

When something doesn't make sense, usually it's because information is missing. Every market participant knows that Tether doesn't prove their reserves, and yet the market exchange rate to USD stays in a tight band between 0.98 and 1.02 across multiple exchanges. If the market doesn't trust Tether, then it should trade at a deep discount to USD, not at parity. Similarly, the conventional wisdom says cryptocurrencies…

> When something doesn't make sense, usually it's because information is missing.

Either that, or because too much irrelevant information is present, combined with an inability to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words, it also quite frequently happens that the necessary information is there, hiding in the midst of all the noise.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#246

Post by panarky »

ncallaway wrote: post #215
panarky wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bear in mind that this is bitcoin It's still a market, so market logic should apply. > get rich quick with bitcoin I see the same shit with real estate. > sufficient people buying tethers at face value It's a market. Smart money can sell tethers. When there's information that all market participants know, the market price should reflect that information.

> I see the same shit with real estate. And that, famously, _never_ crashed.

Housing prices didn't crash after many years of vastly disproportionate negative sentiment.

Housing prices crashed after most of the negative voices capitulated and bought into the speculative fervor, until there were no more buyers.

Today, nearly everyone's gut instinct is that cryptocurrencies are scams, frauds, bubbles, Ponzis and tulips.

Popular sentiment has been negative for years. How will this thing unravel before the majority capitulates?

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#247

Post by rsynnott »

Cyberdog wrote: post #244
empath75 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets are wrong all the time . See the dotcom crash, the 2008 crash, etc.

So a crash is a market being wrong?

To a large extent, yes, often. See the dot-com bubble, for instance.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#248

Post by otp124 »

acchow wrote: post #242
busterc wrote: post #117

I found this comment, by Richard Berger on SeekingAlpha, compelling: > STOP! and think about what this author has revealed. Even IF Tether is NOT running a fraud, the arbitrage positions that automatically exist between Bitcoin and any tether are real and do create incentive to create an arbitraged feedback loop whereby a pegged tether between Bitcoin - any_generic_tether - USD does exist and self feeds, driving up B…

Ok, now I question the validity of everything I've ever read on Seeking Alpha.

Don’t they pay per article you write? Is there any vetting?

I once tried to write an article for Motley Fool (for ~$50) and they kicked it back to me and said I didn’t have enough stock tickers in the article.

It seemed that only spelling and referencing a bunch of stock tickers are what they care about (probably due to SEO). In the end, I didnt re-submit my article because I didn’t want my name on it.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#249

Post by FireBeyond »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #128

I would highly, highly recommend moving money off of Bitfinex in the near future (especially if you are a U.S. customer)...

Yeah, good luck. They only recommend using a few exchanges, only one of which seems able to get your money back into USD...

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#250

Post by ThomPete »

RexetBlell wrote: post #236
ThomPete wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it funny? Is there some obvious explanation for this I am missing? Seen it a couple of times now.

It's funny because the trading volume of Bitcoin is huge - about 250 million dollars worth of Bitcoin is bought and sold per hour around the world, 24/7. My guess is that the reason we see the horizontal lines is because let's say someone places a large sell order (say 1000 Bitcoins) at $11600. It takes a few minutes for the market to absorb it. The price stays flat until the entire order is bought.

Yes, which is why I was asking.

I have had bitcoin since early on so I am aware of increased trading volume.

Thanks for the explanation.

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