New orders are immediately queued in a FIFO queue -- which is a very cheap operation.

They are then taken out of this queue, and matched in the orderbook.

When this queue is very long, there is a considerable delay between submitting your order and, that order getting matched, so it can appear that (for example) the market price is well bid at $150 , you submit a 'sell at $130$ order, and then you see the market trade at $100, your order not executed.


Gox need to indicate WHEN there is a fast-market , and ideally estimate and publish the lag.