
Ethereum flash crashes to $13 before bouncing back to $296 - kgwgk
http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-price-flash-crash-2017-6
======
sushid
1\. This only happened on GDAX, an exchange owned by Coinbase. This dip didn't
occur anywhere else. Coinbase/GDAX has suspended all ETH/USD trading until
further notice and are investigating.

2\. According to some on Reddit, it crashed to even lower than $13, some
reporting even $0.10. Some were even able to purchase for a double digit USD
price on Coinbase, not just GDAX.

3\. The market sell order appears to have been for $32 MM.

~~~
dsri
Coinbase prices are is based on GDAX market rates:
[https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/210959...](https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/2109597-buy-
sell-bank-transfer-fees)

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chollida1
[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-21/ethereum-flash-
cras...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-21/ethereum-flash-crashes-
after-status-ico-clogs-network)

A bit more colour on the issue from reddit via zerohedge.

If they are correct it looks like a badly designed ICO and a badly behaved
miner are the causes of the crash.

A couple of points....

If this was a mature market, like say the US equity markets,

\- mostly likely some trades would be busted and

\- if this was indeed caused by a market participant behaving badly, they
would be punished and possibly have their access pulled.

Assuming the above is correct, how do you police miners in a distributed
market with no central authority?

~~~
nihonde
The theory of networks like Ethereum is that they don't require trust and thus
don't need any authorities second-guessing bad behavior. If these
opportunities for market manipulation arise, it's supposed to be 100% buyer
beware. Of course, as stakeholders have an increasing interest in promoting
the credibility of the market, this theory is eroded by the impulse to take
corrective actions. Indeed, since forking is always an option, there will
seemingly always be a temptation to use a democratic mechanism to enforce a
correction. Afterward, the validity of the correction is determined by the
remnant value of the two forks respectively.

~~~
SilasX
That's sort of what happened with the DAO scandal. As I understand it[1], some
Ethereum company screwed up something they wrote on the platform, which
allowed an attacker to exploit it and suck out a lot of money, so some
influential players convinced the entire network (minus some splinter faction)
to retroactively void the attack and restore the funds to the company it was
stolen from.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereumfraud/comments/6bgvqv/faq_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereumfraud/comments/6bgvqv/faq_what_exactly_is_the_fraud_in_ethereum/)

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gchokov
Seems like this was only on GDAX / Coinbase. No other exchanges.

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tyingq
Blockchain novice here. Is there any way to tell from publicly available info
if anyone got in a really big buy at the bottom?

~~~
bluesteel44
No blockchain involved, you can check the website of the exchange.

~~~
tyingq
Trying that now ([https://www.gdax.com/trade/ETH-
USD](https://www.gdax.com/trade/ETH-USD)), but I don't see the crash.

~~~
milkytron
Use the candle stick graph, you'll be able to see a red whisker reaching
towards the bottom.

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nickthemagicman
Wait WHAT! How could that happen lol

