Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin so volatile?
Why does this happens?
Large amount of BTC moving?
Is this a manipulation by the large marketplaces such as Mt Gox, etc?
What are your theories?
What are your theories?
Imagine you have 1M shares of your smallish company's "public" OTC stock, last traded at $0.10. Nice, you've got $100K right?
Usually that is until you try to sell. Your first sale might go off at $0.09 due to the spread, 1000 shares later and it's already $0.08, 10,000 shares later $0.07, etc or worse. You've chewed through the bids quickly and ended up with a lot less money that you thought you were going to get. The solution of course is to use a limit order - it won't guarantee you get a sale, but it will guarantee your price won't be compromised on any sale that occurs.
This can quickly happen on the buy side too; an increase in demand can lead to a rapidly increasing price. That's why "penny stock" newsletters are fertile ground for pump and dump schemes.
As a currency, bitcoin fits the "penny" category. Major currencies transact perhaps trillions of dollars per day. Bitcoin market participation is microscopic in comparison.
Bitoin (or more accurately cryptocurrencies in general) are a revolutionary technology that will change the way we do business. But the network isn't there yet. It will be, someday, but someday is down the road. It's not overnight riches, though some were treating it that way.
Another factor is that mtgox, the main exchange platform, simply cannot handle large loads. So when there's a panic, it's made much, much worse by Gox's inability to keep up. People can't see what's really happening, and they panic sell at market rates, which just sends the price down further.
If Gox were perfect, we'd still see big swings, but they'd probably be a fraction of what they are now.
I think (I hope) that the gold rush mentality will be quieted now. Then Bitcoin can grow at a more reasonable rate for a while. It might fail, but we all win if more cryptocurrency infrastructure is figured out and built up.
Bitcoin was designed to be a currency, a means of immediate exchange, however it is becoming more and more apparent that people are using it as a short term (possibly long term) investment.
A large number of early adopters probably have no experience trading large volumes of any security, and the of Bitcoin is likely to look very different from any existing currency/commodity.
And do they have any systems & developers on staff who know what they are doing?
Most probably the hacker is short-selling BTC (or, dumping off stolen BTC from an attack)
How? Where can you short Bitcoin at the moment?