Again, it's triggered by the Bitcoinica bid/ask price listed at that moment, based on whether you're buying or selling. In a perfect world, you place a limit buy order at @$4/BTC, and as soon as the Bitcoinica ask price reaches $4 or above, it will execute the quantity you requested at $4. Vice versa for a sell order.

Reality: spread changes over time. So even if Mt. Gox price/BTC doesn't move, you could see the Bitcoinica spread move around based on trading activity, other liquidity concerns, or factors that are inherent to Bitcoinica's (undisclosed) algorithm. The point is that order execute based on Bitcoinica's bid/ask prices, and nothing else.

If you're seeing execution of orders at prices other than the bid/ask spread, it's due to slippage (or the occasional bug).

I have an idea! I'm going to make a portable card-reader for bitcoin. You should send this collection service bitcoins for this idea, and they'll forward it along to the idea-creator. Don't worry, it's all going to the idea.

No need to be a jerk. The nature of your questions suggest you have a weak understanding of FOREX, and so I was giving you a response appropriate to your understanding. This is not an insult, it's a pretty complicated system.

I can't tell you exactly HOW the spread is calculated (and Z won't), and I can tell you that your stops and standing orders are executed based on Bitcoinica's Bid/Ask, which could be wildly different than anything you're seeing on Mt. Gox, in theory. The only relationships the sites share are 1) Bitcoinica trades on Mt. Gox, and 2) Bitcoinica's users trade at Mt. Gox. 

Because of those and arbitrage, you'll almost always see Bitcoinica's spread surround the current Mt. Gox price. But Mt. Gox's price is completely irrelevant to any of your profit and loss transactions on Bitcoinica, and the fact that you keep on it is, again, an indication that you're confused.

If your orders are not executing at exactly the Bid/Ask prices, it's due to something called "slippage": http://winninginvestor.quickanddirtytips.com/liquidity-slippage-selecting-stocks.aspx

I hope that helps, son.

The point is that he holds all the information to extract the underlying BTC at any point, not that it's an incorrect private key. I.e. there certainly are BTC on the coin. A week later, a month, etc, there aren't. Random sample, draw from an address that's on an old coin, easy peasy.

Again, I'm not saying he's doing this. Only that this particular business model is the perfect scam as soon as he gets greedy enough. Maybe he isn't this way, but given the general history of "bitcoin entrepreneurs", I don't know why you'd take the risk.


Because it gives me an opportunity every time to say this: you are a sad, sad group of people begging for change on the internet corner, and it sickens me to the point where I wouldn't put a public BTC address up if you paid me.

I'm not claiming he's a thief, I'm claiming that all else being equal, for a "currency" rife with successful theatre purchases, automatic card reading devices, very reliable forks, secure wallet services, perfectly competitive small cap exchanges, honest mortgage brokers...ah fuck it.

We can be fairly certain of nothing, considering 1) you have no idea who opened those coins, and 2) no smart thief would load none. I'd be happy to skim 1 of every 100 1BTC coins sold, for an extra $383 dollars.


Yes, yes. There's all kinds of legal avenues we can take advantage of to get back our stolen BTCs from you.  The fact is, anyone stupid enough to trust you like they trust their grocery store probably deserves to lose everything.

You both perfectly proved my point by missing the entire object of my post: What value do embedded bitcoins hold if you can't be sure they are even there without destroying the pretty hologram that gives it it's novelty value?

Why would anyone ever accept a 1btc coin in payment for anything, if they couldn't verify that there are even btc in it without destroying the coin?

Do you see what I'm getting at? The entire value of these things (minus the raw brass, silver, or gold) is dependent on 1) Mike being honest, and 2) you never being able to verify if mike was honest with the coin you're holding. He sells an object that requires you to risk throwing away everything you paid for it just to be certain you can trust him.

Again, this is why bitcoins will never go anywhere other than these forums. Most people can think through these problems and then just never bother.

It's a mistake to think in terms of Mt. Gox price, because the spread is not static, it changes with trade volume and other factors. You should think only in terms of the bid/ask prices you are comfortable with, because those are at least real values that can affect your trades.

I wasn't saying any of that. I was saying you've managed to find a perfect way to swap the backing of bitcoin value from a much more trustworthy source (general demand and scarcity) to probably the most untrustworthy source generally (one random internet person). The only reasonable value I can place on your physical product and the underlying bitcoins (the same for anyone who uses similar methods) is based on this statement:


Let me put this another way for all of your customers: The value of your physical coins is the sum of the following: 1) underlying value of the bitcoin code, 2) the novelty/look/use of your product, and 3) the raw materials value.

1): Dependent on you being honest.
2): Dependent on nobody redeeming the code, lest they destroy it's novelty, look, or physical trade use.
3): The only lasting value of your product.

So you've invented a wonderful product that incentivizes not verifying if you're being honest while depending on your honesty, all the while padding your bank account.

This, right here, folks, is why bitcoins will fail. Because everyone with a small stack throws their money at some of the worst ideas on the planet, and most people with an ounce of sense wouldn't even bother.

This is what I love about your product, Casascius. Basically, we trust the "inherent" value of a dollar bill because it's backed by the US government, and we even somewhat trust the "inherent" value of bitcoins based on their usefulness and speculative demand, but you've managed to redirect the only support of value in your physical bitcoins to...you.

I am sure you're ok with your product just being a novelty, though.

lol graffiti.

Riiiiiiight. "Hey man." "Hey...what are you doing with that 2x4 in your pants?"

"Hey Matthew, wanna go get some ice cream?" "No."

You guys are so stupid. Just empty the addresses already. No one will be watching your shitty TV.

No kidding.

Atlas, you totally bailed again. Why do we even bother giving you credit when you keep letting us down? You said you were going to try a new schedule, but you haven't updated anything. Such a quitter.

Tell me again what is keeping him from reading this post?

You got any more information on this diet, by the way?

Less interesting, considering REM is significantly correlated with more dreams in general .

And....?

Missed the update on nap 5-6. Bet he fell asleep again.

Surprising, you actually look pretty sharp in this one, even thought you say you're tired.

Just out of curiosity, what are you trying to get out of this? Is it just an experiment to see how it works?

I don't know much more than wikipedia could tell you, medically, but I can tell you some people think it's total bunk, others say it works great.

I found it to be a nice "motivator," i.e. it's worthless if you want to stay up anyway, because you don't feel "drowsy" the way doxylamine and diphenhydramine make you feel when you first take them, so you can push right through it. It just makes it easier to get started sleeping when I'm ready, for me. It also reminds me that I want to be sleeping, and not up doing something else, because I took it. But a sugar pill would probably serve the same purpose in that case.


I might try this, but I need something to really push me in the right direction, and even 3mg tabs of melatonin doesn't quite get me where I need to be to get started into sleep mode, and still leaves me groggy.