Topic: Shorts on Bitfinex at a all time high! (Read 9889 times)

Quote from: darkangel11 on May 03, 2015, 12:19:17 PM

Quote from: Hunyadi on May 04, 2015, 05:02:38 AM

Well shorts are down to 26K, an 8K drop since the ATH on April 27th. Looks like more and more traders are starting to feel that the 17 month bear market might be coming to a close.

Should have been in bull by now if all these ASIC miners are selling at a loss.

Look at the charts. It looks like we are recovering, we might actually be in the beginning of a bull market.

So far, all the bears are fat and happy.

There will need to be some short squeeze to kill a few bears before any bull run.

They could just go and close their shorts, without being margin-called or their stops being hit! This is not a game of "chicken" or who can hold on to their position the longest. Many bears are actually quite smart - they don't clong to a bullish sentiment, but rather trade the market and try to make a profit, even if the price is going down. If the market changes, they change their strategy/position - it's actually not something to be ashamed of, at all!

It's more realistic to say someone is bearish or bullish than to call them a bear or bull. Few people are permanently one or the other.

minerpumpkin

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So far, all the bears are fat and happy.

There will need to be some short squeeze to kill a few bears before any bull run.

Well said

Well, there doesn't need to be one, but it sure is helping things to get on the right track Cheesy

I think what we do need is some bears changing to bulls, though. There's no reason for them not to do that if the time for a bull-market has come!

ensurance982

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Trust me!

Quote from: darkangel11 on May 03, 2015, 12:19:17 PM

Well shorts are down to 26K, an 8K drop since the ATH on April 27th. Looks like more and more traders are starting to feel that the 17 month bear market might be coming to a close.

Should have been in bull by now if all these ASIC miners are selling at a loss.

Look at the charts. It looks like we are recovering, we might actually be in the beginning of a bull market.

So far, all the bears are fat and happy.

There will need to be some short squeeze to kill a few bears before any bull run.

They could just go and close their shorts, without being margin-called or their stops being hit! This is not a game of "chicken" or who can hold on to their position the longest. Many bears are actually quite smart - they don't clong to a bullish sentiment, but rather trade the market and try to make a profit, even if the price is going down. If the market changes, they change their strategy/position - it's actually not something to be ashamed of, at all!

Hunyadi

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Quote from: darkangel11 on May 03, 2015, 12:19:17 PM

So far, all the bears are fat and happy.

There will need to be some short squeeze to kill a few bears before any bull run.

Well said

Keyara

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Well shorts are down to 26K, an 8K drop since the ATH on April 27th. Looks like more and more traders are starting to feel that the 17 month bear market might be coming to a close.

Should have been in bull by now if all these ASIC miners are selling at a loss.

Look at the charts. It looks like we are recovering, we might actually be in the beginning of a bull market.

So far, all the bears are fat and happy.

There will need to be some short squeeze to kill a few bears before any bull run.

darkangel11

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Don't let others control your BTC -> self custody

Well shorts are down to 26K, an 8K drop since the ATH on April 27th. Looks like more and more traders are starting to feel that the 17 month bear market might be coming to a close.

Should have been in bull by now if all these ASIC miners are selling at a loss.

Look at the charts. It looks like we are recovering, we might actually be in the beginning of a bull market.

tooil

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Quote from: knight22 on April 19, 2015, 04:24:09 AM

Well shorts are down to 26K, an 8K drop since the ATH on April 27th. Looks like more and more traders are starting to feel that the 17 month bear market might be coming to a close.

Should have been in bull by now if all these ASIC miners are selling at a loss.

coinableS

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Well shorts are down to 26K, an 8K drop since the ATH on April 27th. Looks like more and more traders are starting to feel that the 17 month bear market might be coming to a close.

lovekaze

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Odds are good that the price will go up.

It didn't go up which doesn't mean the odds were not good that the price went up Wink

RoadTrain

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Quote from: ElectricMucus on May 03, 2015, 09:25:42 AM

Quote from: RoadTrain on May 02, 2015, 04:38:15 PM

Quote from: molecular on May 02, 2015, 03:09:18 PM

I don't know metatrader4. Assuming it's an app using btc-e api? I don't want to get rid of stops, I just want to remove the exchanges knowledge about it.

Margin call levels are harder. I have no viable idea on how to hide that info from the exchange. Lender/trader would have to manage stuff themselves, but I know of no trustless way to do that.

What are stop-outs?

That's a problem because MT4 doesn't use btc-e api. It's a separate trading platform which uses btc-e as a liquidity provider. It's mostly used for leveraged trading, so stops and margin calls are essential.

Stop-out is when your position is automatically liquidated after you fail to provide additional collateral while being margin called.

IIRC margin call level for BTC-e/MT4 is 30% while stop out is 15%.

So that monster spike we saw on the normal exchange was a short squeeze in the btc-e MT4 engine?

Quite the contrary. It most likely was market buying on the exchange directly, because in MT4 the peak was ~244 while on the exchange it was ~270, so it wasn't really short squeeze.
That's because MT4 has its own internal orderbook on top of BTC-e orderbook, internal is used first.

ElectricMucus

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Quote from: RoadTrain on May 02, 2015, 04:38:15 PM

Quote from: molecular on May 02, 2015, 03:09:18 PM

I don't know metatrader4. Assuming it's an app using btc-e api? I don't want to get rid of stops, I just want to remove the exchanges knowledge about it.

Margin call levels are harder. I have no viable idea on how to hide that info from the exchange. Lender/trader would have to manage stuff themselves, but I know of no trustless way to do that.

What are stop-outs?

That's a problem because MT4 doesn't use btc-e api. It's a separate trading platform which uses btc-e as a liquidity provider. It's mostly used for leveraged trading, so stops and margin calls are essential.

Stop-out is when your position is automatically liquidated after you fail to provide additional collateral while being margin called.

IIRC margin call level for BTC-e/MT4 is 30% while stop out is 15%.

So that monster spike we saw on the normal exchange was a short squeeze in the btc-e MT4 engine?

peeveepee

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Quote from: adaseb on April 19, 2015, 04:15:50 AM

Alot of the shorts are also mining farms that sell un-mined BTC ahead of time to protect their investment against a price crash.

Hope these miners have enough liquidity. Cascading margin call can make them lose money even if they are totally hedged.

RoadTrain

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Quote from: molecular on May 02, 2015, 03:09:18 PM

I don't know metatrader4. Assuming it's an app using btc-e api? I don't want to get rid of stops, I just want to remove the exchanges knowledge about it.

Margin call levels are harder. I have no viable idea on how to hide that info from the exchange. Lender/trader would have to manage stuff themselves, but I know of no trustless way to do that.

What are stop-outs?

That's a problem because MT4 doesn't use btc-e api. It's a separate trading platform which uses btc-e as a liquidity provider. It's mostly used for leveraged trading, so stops and margin calls are essential.

Stop-out is when your position is automatically liquidated after you fail to provide additional collateral while being margin called.

IIRC margin call level for BTC-e/MT4 is 30% while stop out is 15%.

molecular

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Quote from: RoadTrain on May 02, 2015, 06:37:36 AM

Quote from: molecular on May 02, 2015, 01:14:49 AM

Quote from: RoadTrain on May 01, 2015, 06:09:06 PM

Quote from: molecular on May 02, 2015, 01:14:49 AM

I would certainly avoid an exchange that shows my stops to others. Yes, we need to make sure that exchanges don't profit on this information, but going all public is not a solution IMO.

If an exchange started doing that you could still manually initiate a buy/sell at a certain price using their API - so that information would provide some new insights, but not the full picture of how people are trading.

I could. But I wouldn't

I'd better go anywhere else.

To be honest: I think people decide which exchange they go to based on ease of getting fiat in/out and most importantly liquidity present on the books.

That's at least partially true. But it's more applicable to whales I guess. Small fish like me can choose more loosely. E.g I prefer o trade on BTC-e despite that liquidily is much better on BFX.

Quote

And how would you want to do that?

Maybe one option would be to have the exchange not offer stop orders at all. People would use bots for that, so neither the public nor the exchange knows about the stop.

I don't know, to be honest. But how do you get rid of stops at BTC-e with MetaTrader4? I don't think it's possible.
And what about margin call levels and stop-outs? Even if you don't use stops, you can be wiped out (by an exchange too) when using leverage.

I don't know metatrader4. Assuming it's an app using btc-e api? I don't want to get rid of stops, I just want to remove the exchanges knowledge about it.

Margin call levels are harder. I have no viable idea on how to hide that info from the exchange. Lender/trader would have to manage stuff themselves, but I know of no trustless way to do that.

What are stop-outs?

RoadTrain

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Quote from: RoadTrain on May 01, 2015, 06:09:06 PM

Quote from: RoadTrain on May 01, 2015, 06:09:06 PM

I would certainly avoid an exchange that shows my stops to others. Yes, we need to make sure that exchanges don't profit on this information, but going all public is not a solution IMO.

If an exchange started doing that you could still manually initiate a buy/sell at a certain price using their API - so that information would provide some new insights, but not the full picture of how people are trading.

I could. But I wouldn't

I'd better go anywhere else.

To be honest: I think people decide which exchange they go to based on ease of getting fiat in/out and most importantly liquidity present on the books.

That's at least partially true. But it's more applicable to whales I guess. Small fish like me can choose more loosely. E.g I prefer o trade on BTC-e despite that liquidily is much better on BFX.

Quote

And how would you want to do that?

Maybe one option would be to have the exchange not offer stop orders at all. People would use bots for that, so neither the public nor the exchange knows about the stop.

I don't know, to be honest. But how do you get rid of stops at BTC-e with MetaTrader4? I don't think it's possible.
And what about margin call levels and stop-outs? Even if you don't use stops, you can be wiped out (by an exchange too) when using leverage.

molecular

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I would certainly avoid an exchange that shows my stops to others. Yes, we need to make sure that exchanges don't profit on this information, but going all public is not a solution IMO.

If an exchange started doing that you could still manually initiate a buy/sell at a certain price using their API - so that information would provide some new insights, but not the full picture of how people are trading.

I could. But I wouldn't

I'd better go anywhere else.

To be honest: I think people decide which exchange they go to based on ease of getting fiat in/out and most importantly liquidity present on the books.

molecular

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Activity: 2772

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Quote from: molecular on April 30, 2015, 08:24:37 AM

Quote from: ensurance982 on April 30, 2015, 08:13:46 AM

Quote from: molecular on April 27, 2015, 12:10:11 AM

Quote from: ElectricMucus on April 26, 2015, 03:16:47 PM

The other thing is the ratio between shorts/longs that is more of a indicator of "how dangerous is a short squeeze" if you look right now that's at 21.1%

Quote from: ensurance982 on April 26, 2015, 08:18:48 PM

At what point do you think the risk of a short-squeeze may become too dangerous for shorters?

Yeah, this thread (for me at least) is about: how likely is a short squeeze.

Things is: we simply don't have the data to judge this. Aggregate amount of swaps just doesn't cut it. We'd need a list of positions with price and ideally leverage used. We jcould guesstimage when positions are opened (new swaps taken) and we'd know roughly the price. We could also guesstimate when positions are being closed (swap amount decreses) and we'd know roughly the price. But we'd miss a crucial piece of info: which positions are being closed?

I wish bitfinex (or other exchanges) was radically transparent with that kind of data. Why stop at the orderbook? I'd also like to see a list of stops. No hidden orders, either. That'd resemble a fair playing field.

The way it currently is, the exchange itself (or people working for it), have an unfair advantage against the 'normal' market participants.

Running a fractional reserve scheme or disappropriating user funds seem archaic compared to taking advantage of more detailed than published orderbook status, position and user balance information. That taking advantage would work wholly undetectably and without using special powers (just by making trades through the normal user api), too.

How likely do you guys think is this kind of "insider knowledge" being used by insiders of exchanges?

You're implying something very important: Exchanges know their order book, they know the hidden order, they know the stops (if traders use the exchange stops), and may use these information for their own profit and gain. Sure, it would be more transparent, but would all exchanges be willing to implement it?

Would you rather trade on an exchange that implements this or some other exchange?

Seems to me we need more competition in exchanges regarding transparency and protection against such potential exchange malfeasance.

However, it seems customers most important criteria for picking an exchange to trade on seems to be the liquidity provided and its trading volume.

I would certainly avoid an exchange that shows my stops to others. Yes, we need to make sure that exchanges don't profit on this information, but going all public is not a solution IMO.

And how would you want to do that?

Maybe one option would be to have the exchange not offer stop orders at all. People would use bots for that, so neither the public nor the exchange knows about the stop.

RoadTrain

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I would certainly avoid an exchange that shows my stops to others. Yes, we need to make sure that exchanges don't profit on this information, but going all public is not a solution IMO.

If an exchange started doing that you could still manually initiate a buy/sell at a certain price using their API - so that information would provide some new insights, but not the full picture of how people are trading.

I could. But I wouldn't

I'd better go anywhere else.

chmod755

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