There's definitely a great deal of automated trading happening. I suspect it's less DDoS than ad-hoc HFT bots, though.

I think these are done in bursts specifically to cause lag. Nobody would bother to buy 0.1 BTC in 100 separate orders at the same price. Often the orders are cancelled anyway.

Actually, I believe this is bitcoin washing. Its money laundering of sorts.

Won't you get destroyed in fees doing this?

Which is more, paying x% on 1BTC of x% a hundred times on 0.01BTC?

I'm not familiar with the cost structure, but if there were a per-transaction cost then it would be:

which is more, paying x% + y once on 1 BTC or paying x% + y a hundred times on 0.01 BTC?

Clearly the latter is more, assuming of course that `y` is positive (and it would be a very strange market that inverted the structure)

Mt. Gox I believe has a flat percentage fee on all trades so someone can make as many micro trades as they want and still pay the same fee as one large trade.

It's pretty easy to solve by charging users who make over a certain limit of micro trades. I wonder why they haven't done this?

This actually seems like a large flaw in their fee structure. Every traditional online brokerage/trading service that I have looked at in the past has used a flat fee. This incentives individuals to reduce their number of transactions in order to limit the overall fee's paid.

On Bitfloor, you actually get up to 0.1% rebate on limit orders. From the docs:

"Any order that is on the order book will receive a rebate when filled. Think of this as a negative fee (you actually get extra funds). This is done to provide an incentive for some traders to place their orders onto the order book for others to better understand market conditions."

Same thing happens on the equity markets, with the difference being pocketed by the exchanges (they'll pay .29 cents per share to liquidity providers and charge .30 to liquidity takers)

Dear quandryfoe

My name is Danjuma Sule, one of the sons of major Gen Gumel Danjuma Sule, The late Nigeria's former minister of mines and power in the regime of the late former Nigeria's military Head of state, Gen Sanni Abacha. When my father died he left me an inheritance of 9830422.33333421 bitcoins. Unfortunately bitcoin exchanges are not yet set up in Nigerian currency and I am in need of a young techno wizard with a bank account denominated in US dollars to assist me in gaining access to my inheritance.

It is on this basis I am seeking for assistance. Your percentage is negotiable. Please note; your age and profession doesn't really matter in this transaction. Waiting for your immediate response and bank account specifics.

Regards, Danjuma Sule

The ironic thing about this comment is that, unlike with a USD bank account, I would be happy to give someone my public bitcoin address.

I imagine sharing your IBAN or local equivalent does not imply any significantly larger danger than sharing your bitcoin address, am i missing something?

The scary thing is that there are no checks on withdrawals from your account. Anyone with your account number (which is available on all checks) could in theory withdraw money from your account.

It is not as easy as it sounds. Those kind of withdraws (direct debits) needs special accounts to start with, and can be cancelled talking to the bank (during a "grace period", typically 2 weeks). The process to determine if that withdraw was legitimate is done with the money on the original account. If you have more than normal rate of "rejections", your special account will be cancelled, and could be difficult to run direct debits again...

The specifics can change from country to country, of course. I know that in the US direct debits are rare (while in Europe are quite common), so maybe the process changes.

Anyway, your bank account number is still sensitive info, as there are scams that can challenge the whole process (generating lots of direct debits, or trying to duplicate legitimate ones to go "undercover")

That would depend on the bank and country. In the UK, for example, you can set up a direct debit and withdraw funds directly, using just the bank details. But you would need to have a UK bank account to do so, and they would presumably not just allow anyone to start running direct debits.

If you're creating a new account because you KNOW its going to be downvoted, isn't that an indication that you just shouldn't make the comment?

Maybe he was just committing to the joke.

Similarly downvoted him.

HN is a serious place for serious topics. We should be talking about bitcoin.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not...

It's actually a very wonderful comment.

Why is your name in green?

It's an 'HN Verified' account; this person has passed all identity/credit checks and may -- nay, should -- be issued convertible debt at will.

How can I get one of these "HN Verified" accounts? Are you the person in charge of verification I should be sending my credit card information to?

From the same place you get 4chan gold accounts.

Next to the pool on the roof.

"Noob"

Edit: I mean green equals new account.