# Last edited on 2014-02-10 21:52:02 by stolfilocal

What was really the cause of today's crash?

It happened right after MtGOX posted their release, so obviously that is part of the answer.  But why should it cause the panic sell?

Surprisingly even Huobi and OKCoin dropped, even though MtGOX should be irrelevant or even unknown to most Chinese.

Huobi started to drop slightly fron 4488 CNY at 10:04 UTC, while the volume suddenly inceased.  The fall  gradually accelerated downwarsd, with some bumps, to a low of 3508 at 10:59, when it rebounded.

OKCoin followed the same pattern, starting slowly at 10:05 to the low of 3370 a bit after 10:59.

On Bitstamp the onser was more gradual but also starting at 10:05 from 691 USD, with small volume. It paused a bit along the way, then had a suddendrop at 10:41 with a sudden increase in volume, and fell faster from then on.  The fall stopped at 11:01 but instead of an instantaneous rebound there was an U-shaped turnaround, with the rebound taking off only at 09:12

At BTC-e the fall started a bit earlier but the volume only increased significantly at 10:07.  It paused fora while near 10:22 but accelerated greatl at 10:42.  It bottomed out at 10:51, remained there for 3 minutes, but then had a freak drop to 102 USD, from which it rebounded promptly.

At MtGOX things were rather different.  Before the crash, there were several large transactions at prices between 670 and 625:

  07:54  ~275 BTC
  07:56  ~475 BTC
  08:58  ~475 BTC
  09:24  ~485 BTC
  09:29  ~450 BTC
  09:33  ~540 BTC

The crash then started at 10:05 from 658 USD with a transaction of 390 BTC; another followed at 10:09. The fall was slower and linear instead of parabolic, with a blunt bottom at about 11:10; then price rose linearly again to ~625 at 11:54.

MtGOX was already caught replaying the same transactions several times in early december, showing apparently stable price when it was really faling straight down.   

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Todays crash seems to have started at practically the same time (10:05 UTC) on Huobi, OKCoin, and Bitstamp.  It followed similar patterns at these three sites. A slight jump in volume at 10:05 marked the start of a slow parabolic price fall.  The price fall paused at about 10:22,  and the price recovered a bit.  Then another jump in volume started a much faster parabolic fall, until the price hit bottom and then rebounded.  However, Huobi and OKCoin hit bottom at 11:59 and rebounded right afterwards, while Bitstamp stopped falling at 11:01, made a gradual U-turn and then streaked upwards at 11:12.

At BTC-e the fall started a bit earlier but the volume only increased significantly at 10:07.  It paused fora while near 10:22 but accelerated greatl at 10:42.  It bottomed out at 10:51, remained there for 3 minutes, but then had a freak drop to 102 USD, from which it rebounded promptly.

At MtGOX things were rather different.  Before the crash, there were several large transactions at prices between 670 and 625:

  07:54  ~275 BTC
  07:56  ~475 BTC
  08:58  ~475 BTC
  09:24  ~485 BTC
  09:29  ~450 BTC
  09:33  ~540 BTC

The crash then started at 10:05 from 658 USD with a transaction of 390 BTC; another followed at 10:09. The fall was slower and linear instead of parabolic, with a blunt bottom at about 11:10; then price rose linearly again to ~625 at 11:54.

MtGOX was already caught replaying the same transactions several times in early december, showing apparently stable price when it was really faling straight down.