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Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

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Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#81

Post by noduerme »

sneak wrote: post #62
noduerme wrote: post #27

Honest question: How do you determine that something like this was an honest mistake? Once, when I was much younger, I had a side gig dealing poker at an underground club in NYC. One morning at the end of 10 hours dealing, I accidentally exposed a burn card which turned out to be something one of the players was representing (bluffing), with about $10k on the table. It was an honest mistake - literally a fat finger m…

> Honest question: How do you determine that something like this was an honest mistake? Good question. It's not like the errant trader couldn't have had a friend of a friend put in a bunch of $10k limit buys the day before, knowing the price would recover nearly instantly...

Right, this was my original question and I'm wondering how SBF would've gotten to the bottom of it. What I'm speculating is that a gangster would've either punished the employee or been in on it.

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#82

Post by c7DJTLrn »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #41
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Capital_Group

I believe that knight was not a fat finger

Sorry, you are correct. It does demonstrate how brittle things can be at large funds though.

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#84

Post by keyle »

noduerme wrote: post #43
keyle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great story! Thanks for sharing.

Heh. I love being able to pseudonymously tell HN my crazy stories from time to time. It's the only online chatter I indulge in. Sadly I have no colleagues who I can both talk shop with and also talk about my previous lives. "Build what makes you happy..." is a darn good philosophy, btw.

> "Build what makes you happy..." is a darn good philosophy, btw.

Thanks! I wish I'd say it's my daily driver, but I still work for money.

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#85

Post by vgatherps »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #26
Vecr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Most) trading's not done on chain, it's settled later. Alameda could absolutely trade faster than that.

Doesn’t that just mean the trading is done by a trusted third party? Fine until the third party goes belly up.

This is how most asset trading works, but outside of crypto these third parties are actually trustworthy

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#86

Post by paxys »

Tao3300 wrote: post #76
paxys wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has a market cap of $530B and at its peak was over $1.3T. That is not a "toy" but a very real financial market.

> the total (ostensible) value of all coins that have been mined in a given cryptocurrency. These values should be taken with a hefty grain of salt, as they are considerably larger than the total value that could be realized if holders of a currency decided to try to cash out.

Yes, that's how all stocks and every other market in the world works. Still doesn't mean the value isn't valid.

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#87

Post by labrador »

> According to SBF, the utility we gained by moving fast outweighed the occasional costs we paid due to poor risk checks, hacks, and the like.

When I was young I "moved fast and broke things", then had brushes with the law that fortunately didn't result in jail. Silicon Valley prides itself on second and third order thinking, but do people ever consider what might come after "moving fast and breaking things"

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#88

Post by noduerme »

jmyeet wrote: post #74
noduerme wrote: post #27

Honest question: How do you determine that something like this was an honest mistake? Once, when I was much younger, I had a side gig dealing poker at an underground club in NYC. One morning at the end of 10 hours dealing, I accidentally exposed a burn card which turned out to be something one of the players was representing (bluffing), with about $10k on the table. It was an honest mistake - literally a fat finger m…

I'm skeptical about the "honest mistake" story as it's self-serving because an "honest mistake" isn't a crime, or at least it isn't as serious a crime. I can easily believe that development was lax without proper monitoring, controls and testing. Typically for any kind of trading system there'll be multiple layers to help catch these kinds of errors or deliberate fraud. This could include some or all of: 1. A separat…

Yeah, and - someone correct me - aren't at least some of the charges against SBF related to intentional backdoors in the code?

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#89

Post by [deleted] »

FireBeyond wrote: post #70
noduerme wrote: post #27

Honest question: How do you determine that something like this was an honest mistake? Once, when I was much younger, I had a side gig dealing poker at an underground club in NYC. One morning at the end of 10 hours dealing, I accidentally exposed a burn card which turned out to be something one of the players was representing (bluffing), with about $10k on the table. It was an honest mistake - literally a fat finger m…

I once watched a new (I assume) dealer make two large mistakes at a blackjack table, in Vegas, of all places. One, I had put down $500 in twenties, and he was giving me chips, except he was going to give me $1,250 in chips, like he thought they were fifties. Pit Boss looked at him, looked at the chips, "What are you doing??", let him fix the error. A couple of hands in, dealer gets an Ace, so he checks the hole card.…

[deleted]

Re: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

#90

Post by johndhi »

noduerme wrote: post #75
johndhi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played one of those spots by union square. Was fun to feel like a gangster for an evening but ultimately not a crowd I want to spend a lot of time around.

Hah. That's posh. They used to have apartments all around NYU stuffed with slot machines they brought up from Atlantic City. Club members got a key to let them just go play slots. But I never played or dealt downtown. This gem was in a basement in Harlem up on Malcolm X, steel door and heavy security, 2 blackjack tables, a couple poker tables and some slots. I knew the manager because he came every morning for breakf…

Wild. The slots thing - seems so easy for someone to rat on them and then so easy for the cops to break it up.

The Manhattan one was poker only. Steel door with a camera, get buzzed into a second door where you talk to somebody and they only buzz you up if they recognize you.

The poker room had two nice tables and a little bar where you could buy drinks. TVs playing sports. Seemed to be Asian-run.

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