It was a rough day for traders of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency on Wednesday as ethereum plunged from more than $317 to briefly trade as low as 10 cents in a flash cash on the GDAX exchange before rebounding.
In a post, GDAX Vice President Adam White said a “multimillion-dollar market sell” order was placed on GDAX’s ETH-USD [ethereum-U.S. dollar] order book, which resulted in orders being filled from $317.81 to $224.48—for a slippage of 29.4%. That, in turn, began a cascade of around 800 stop-loss orders and margin-funding liquidations, which sent the price temporarily as low as a dime, he explained.
A stop-loss order requires the security to be sold when the price hits a certain threshold. Margin-funding refers to trading with borrowed money. Liquidations can occur when margin-funded positions are closed out automatically to prevent further losses. The combination of stop-loss orders and margin liquidations contributed to the sharp downward spiral, which was followed by a sharp rebound.
White said the GDAX decided to temporarily halt trading of ETH-USD in response to the price movement, then restored trading in accordance with the exchange’s “downtime process” once it was confirmed that all systems were operating correctly.
White said the exchange’s initial investigations showed “no indication of wrongdoing or account takeovers” but acknowledged that such an event “can be frustrating for our customers.”
White said the exchange’s matching engine “operated as intended throughout this event” and that “trading with advanced features like margin always carries inherent risk.”
And don’t look for the trades to be reversed.
“We are continuing to conduct a thorough investigation and will keep customers updated with any resulting actions. With that in mind, it is important to note that these trades are final in accordance with our GDAX Trading Rules (Section 3.1),” White wrote. “Honoring properly executed orders is critical to maintaining the integrity of an exchange.”
See: How cryptocurrency ethereum looks set to overtake bitcoin—in one chart
Ethereum last traded at $326.94 on GDAX Thursday morning. Coinmarketcap, a website that tracks market capitalizations for a variety of cryptocurrencies, said the total value of ethereum stood at $31.486 billion, second only to bitcoin at $44.475 billion.
Ethereum has been on a tear in 2017 after beginning the year near $8. Investors have been excited by the network’s blockchain, which many see as more versatile compared with bitcoin
