7 ms·

> On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic.

by wcoenen 14y ago

> On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. The bitcointalk forums and /r/bitcoin are full of paranoia like this. After months of stress trying to divine market patterns, people see market manipulation and conspiracies everywhere. The simple truth is that there was an agressive bubble. The doubling period for the price was halving with each iteration[1]. If you looked at the log plot[2], it still looked exponential! A crash was inevitable. > On another note, mtgox.com the main exchange is shockingly unfit for purpose. They have a big update scheduled for April 17th[3]. [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171312.0;all https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171312.0;all [2] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzl http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g... [3] https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html

dia80 14y ago
Why do you think I'm paranoid? It's my best guess. Despite my tender years I have seen many speculative bubbles in lots of asset classes and have traded them on a private and professional basis. I agree there are plenty of people in bitcoin ready to be 'the greater fool' [1] but that's only if it fails... they will be self assured visionaries otherwise... [1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Speculation/dp/0452281806 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Specul...
bdr 14y ago
> paranoia MtGox has said they were subject to DDoS attacks: https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 > If you looked at the log plot[2], it still looked exponential! Trying to divine future price movement from looking at a graph has been proven definitively, repeatedly to be foolish.
- brazzy 14y ago
  Divining that a price that is rising in a superexponential manner will be going down sometime soon is one of the least fooling things one can do when looking at a graph.
  - bdr 14y ago
    You are empirically wrong. Please, quantify your idea and go backtest it on the stock market. The efficient-market hypothesis does not have an asterisk excluding cryptocurrencies.
    - phyalow 14y ago
      the efficient market is dead and always has been.
      - derleth 14y ago
        > the efficient market is dead and always has been. This is what people mean when they say "efficient market" in this context: > In finance, the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) asserts that financial markets are "informationally efficient". In consequence of this, one cannot consistently achieve returns in excess of average market returns on a risk-adjusted basis, given the information available at the time the investment is made. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis There are variations of this hypothesis, so saying "it's dead" is meaningless unless you specify which one is "dead" and how it has failed.
        Retric 14y ago
        There are generally arbitration opertunity's that offer short term rewards well beyond the standard risk reward curve. Which is how many algorithmic traders consistently return high double digit returns with ought leverage. The simplest being having a mix of buy and sell orders that straddle the average.
        14y ago
- discobean 14y ago
  Right.. Because a DDoS on their site should create a trading lag in their backend engine? Are they running on 1 server?
  - kalleboo 14y ago
    It's unclear, but it seems in any case the separation is weak http://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 http://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 "There are a few things that we can implement to help fight the attacks, such as disconnecting the trade engine backend from the Internet. By separating the data center from the Mt.Gox website, we will continue to be able to trade"
  - clarkm 14y ago
    While it was not the cause of today's drop[1], that is a big part of the problem. While they are frantically working on decoupling their website from the trading engine, they are still connected, and DDoS attacks are still effective at causing extreme trading lag.[2] Such attacks have been the root cause of several mini-panics over the past couple weeks.[3] Of course this is bad design, but you have to remember that this website started out as Magic the Gathering Online eXchange. It was built to trade playing cards, not to serve as a multi-million dollar currency exchange. The trading engine was retrofitted for bitcoin, and was stuck with several bad design decisions as a result. While I agree this should have been fixed long ago, MtGox has had its hands full recently. The massive growth in its userbase, the ever-growing verification queue, and the fact that it is expected to be online 24/7 have made things difficult. However, I suspect the main cause of today's massive has to do with this: https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html It will interesting to see what effect this policy change will have. [1] https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/455962117821534 https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/455962117821534 [2] https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 [3] https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/320043013420249088 https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/320043013420249088
- knowaveragejoe 14y ago
  That tweet is from more than a week ago. Any confirmation that they were under a massive DDoS today?
baddox 14y ago
DDOS attacks are fairly common, even for completely unprofitable endeavors, right? Why is it unreasonable to assume that potentially lucrative DDOS attacks would also occur?
drcross 14y ago
The person who announced the implementation date of a security change should be fired on the spot. This is security 101.
- STRML 14y ago
  They are shockingly unfit to be the largest exchange in a billion dollar market. They are amateurs at best.
wamatt 14y ago
>The bitcointalk forums and /r/bitcoin are full of paranoia like this. 'The HN forums is full of smug dismissiveness like this' It's a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things, and tons of sites were DDOS'd and simultaneously going slow or down (bitcointalk, mtgox, bitcoincharts, bitstamp). The evidence is my own eyes and refreshing browser timeouts. Everything back to normal now. Highly unlikely that all those sites would be bought down by "panicked" users alone. Given profiteering DDOS attacks against casino operators are commonplace, I find it a stretch to think these attacks are not happening regularly against bitcoin sites.
BrokenPipe 14y ago
Yeah I'm sure some people do exaggerate. However mtgox is a toy system and it has been attacked for a while on the recent days, it creates lag and panics. Anyhow, there's a correction every once in a while. It then goes higher than before, I'm still not convinced it is a bubble afterall.

by wcoenen 14y ago

dia80 14y ago

Why do you think I'm paranoid? It's my best guess. Despite my tender years I have seen many speculative bubbles in lots of asset classes and have traded them on a private and professional basis. I agree there are plenty of people in bitcoin ready to be 'the greater fool' [1] but that's only if it fails... they will be self assured visionaries otherwise... [1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Speculation/dp/0452281806 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Specul...

bdr 14y ago

> paranoia MtGox has said they were subject to DDoS attacks: https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 > If you looked at the log plot[2], it still looked exponential! Trying to divine future price movement from looking at a graph has been proven definitively, repeatedly to be foolish.

brazzy 14y ago
Divining that a price that is rising in a superexponential manner will be going down sometime soon is one of the least fooling things one can do when looking at a graph.
- bdr 14y ago
  You are empirically wrong. Please, quantify your idea and go backtest it on the stock market. The efficient-market hypothesis does not have an asterisk excluding cryptocurrencies.
  - phyalow 14y ago
    the efficient market is dead and always has been.
    - derleth 14y ago
      > the efficient market is dead and always has been. This is what people mean when they say "efficient market" in this context: > In finance, the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) asserts that financial markets are "informationally efficient". In consequence of this, one cannot consistently achieve returns in excess of average market returns on a risk-adjusted basis, given the information available at the time the investment is made. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis There are variations of this hypothesis, so saying "it's dead" is meaningless unless you specify which one is "dead" and how it has failed.
      - Retric 14y ago
        There are generally arbitration opertunity's that offer short term rewards well beyond the standard risk reward curve. Which is how many algorithmic traders consistently return high double digit returns with ought leverage. The simplest being having a mix of buy and sell orders that straddle the average.
        14y ago
discobean 14y ago
Right.. Because a DDoS on their site should create a trading lag in their backend engine? Are they running on 1 server?
- kalleboo 14y ago
  It's unclear, but it seems in any case the separation is weak http://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 http://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 "There are a few things that we can implement to help fight the attacks, such as disconnecting the trade engine backend from the Internet. By separating the data center from the Mt.Gox website, we will continue to be able to trade"
- clarkm 14y ago
  While it was not the cause of today's drop[1], that is a big part of the problem. While they are frantically working on decoupling their website from the trading engine, they are still connected, and DDoS attacks are still effective at causing extreme trading lag.[2] Such attacks have been the root cause of several mini-panics over the past couple weeks.[3] Of course this is bad design, but you have to remember that this website started out as Magic the Gathering Online eXchange. It was built to trade playing cards, not to serve as a multi-million dollar currency exchange. The trading engine was retrofitted for bitcoin, and was stuck with several bad design decisions as a result. While I agree this should have been fixed long ago, MtGox has had its hands full recently. The massive growth in its userbase, the ever-growing verification queue, and the fact that it is expected to be online 24/7 have made things difficult. However, I suspect the main cause of today's massive has to do with this: https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html It will interesting to see what effect this policy change will have. [1] https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/455962117821534 https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/455962117821534 [2] https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/453409538076792 [3] https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/320043013420249088 https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/320043013420249088
knowaveragejoe 14y ago
That tweet is from more than a week ago. Any confirmation that they were under a massive DDoS today?

baddox 14y ago

DDOS attacks are fairly common, even for completely unprofitable endeavors, right? Why is it unreasonable to assume that potentially lucrative DDOS attacks would also occur?

drcross 14y ago

The person who announced the implementation date of a security change should be fired on the spot. This is security 101.

STRML 14y ago
They are shockingly unfit to be the largest exchange in a billion dollar market. They are amateurs at best.

wamatt 14y ago

>The bitcointalk forums and /r/bitcoin are full of paranoia like this. 'The HN forums is full of smug dismissiveness like this' It's a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things, and tons of sites were DDOS'd and simultaneously going slow or down (bitcointalk, mtgox, bitcoincharts, bitstamp). The evidence is my own eyes and refreshing browser timeouts. Everything back to normal now. Highly unlikely that all those sites would be bought down by "panicked" users alone. Given profiteering DDOS attacks against casino operators are commonplace, I find it a stretch to think these attacks are not happening regularly against bitcoin sites.

BrokenPipe 14y ago

Yeah I'm sure some people do exaggerate. However mtgox is a toy system and it has been attacked for a while on the recent days, it creates lag and panics. Anyhow, there's a correction every once in a while. It then goes higher than before, I'm still not convinced it is a bubble afterall.