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Why would anyone have an automated process selling LOW? That's bizarre and just asking for trouble.

• bowmessage 9y ago
  Not many people had that set up explicitly, rather, they were trading on margin (loaned capital). The value of ETH dropped so low that they were forced to sell to repay their debts, leaving their accounts empty.
  • rjbwork 9y ago
    And they dropped so low because the giant sell order was executed at market value instead of a limit order... causing the holder in question to also lose gobs and gobs of potential profit himself. All signs point to one inexperienced person who bought in at the initial ethereum offering of ~35 cents a coin, and found themselves holding 10 million worth of ETH. Not knowing how an exchange works, they put the order in for sell 33300 ETH at market price to cash in their earnings and ride off into the sunset. The buy book wasn't thick enough to absorb that much sell side @ market, so the market sells and margin calls ate the entire buy down to the very bottom huge buy @ $0.10 each. So did the value drop that low? Not really. Just due to a very immature and primitive market on one particular exchange, did this happen. When you compare these Crypto-exchanges to modern stock or forex exchanges, you'll see that they are just vastly less sophisticated.
  • deleted 9y ago
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