Bitstamp's trade log is problematic. BitcoinWisdom's owner says that Bitstamp's chart data API does not provide the trade type ("buy" vs "sell") so he has to guess it somehow; and the entries also have some timestamp/order problems. Because of these problems, perhaps, some past entries of the log change quite a bit when the chart is hard-reloaded. (More details here.)

The problem seems limited to Bitstamp.  I don't understand yet how those shortcomings of their API could cause the BTC amounts to vary (in that link, for example, one trade for 0.036 BTC became 0.34 BTC). Anyway, they should fix those bugs, otherwise clients who notice those retroactive changes may get the wrong (or right?) ideas.

Barry Silbert just tweeted a summary of the syndicate that SecondMarket organized to bid on the USMS auction:
https://twitter.com/barrysilbert/status/482951689381904384
I gather that they collected bids from those 42 people (average bid: ~264 BTC), then selected the highest ones adding up to the auction offer (~29'600 BTC) and submitted bids for the 10 lots, at suitable mean prices.

I presume that they asked the bidders to provide the full dollar amount of their bids in advance, otherwise one defaulter could cause other bidders in the same lot to lose their share of the deposit.

It seems likely that most if not all of those bids were well below market.  I cannot imagine why someone would enter that syndicate to buy a couple hundred BTC above market, instead of buying at an exchange (or buying shares of SMBIT).

Finally, I imagine that SecondMarket and SMBIT did not submit any bid of their own, either as part of the syndicate or separately.  Otherwise there would be an, erm, rather delicate situation there.

This forum does not allow users to change their avatars, or new users to add them.

Will all users who happened to choose the same avatar please have the same opinions on everything? It is rather confusing otherwise.

Some people may claim to have won or lost; some of either may reveal their bid price, or only hint "very good price", whatever.  However, they can lie about it (almost) without risk of being disproved, and many will be strongly motivated to do so.  Many may not lie but may be happy that others do.

Should we conclude that SecondMarket did not post any bid of their own?  (It would be a dicey situation if they did.)

But should a woodchuck chuck wood, even if it could and would?

Er, sorry to have to ask, but how can they bid for 48,013 BTC if there are only 29,656.51306529 BTC for sale?

As I understood from the USMS specs, if someone places mutiple bids that add up to more than the 10 lots, some of the bids will lose for sure -- those with lowest price, or those submitted later if they have the same price.  What am I missing?

Also, the auction is for 9 lots of 3000 BTC and one of 2,656.51306529  BTC.  So they bid for 16 lots of 3000; what are those 13 extra bitcoins? The SM fee?

EDIT - presumably they discarded the lowest bids and submitted to the USMS only bids for 10 blocks with the highest sydicate bids, is that it?

Bitcoin is considered to be a great innovation because it is virtual cash.  I am just a step ahead of everybody here: I virtually trade it. 

Starting soon after midnight, China time?  (But 1 pm here in Brazil  )

If you trade with bitcoin, you should watch the Chinese exchanges most of all. 

The price in China suddenly stabilized and was flat for 45 minutes straight, and volume fell to very low levels -- even though trade is usually still strong at this hour. And now trade is picking up again.

How strange. Does anyone know of some phenomenon that lasts almost exactly 45 minutes? 

Are you sure that the glitch was in their fake buy order bot, and not in their front-running bot?
 

I don't think it is just the bots.  Look at the 1d 1h chart, it should scare most wetware traders too.

EDIT: The 1h chart is the one that looks really scary. Traders who open that chart now will probably panic.

I wasn't watching Huobi when that spike occurred, and now it has already dropped out of the trade log.  Did it show up there? If so, what was its BTC volume? (I see no spike in the volume graph.)

Were all the bids down to 3402 CNY wiped out? If so, were new bids immediately placed back?

What now? Some bad news on Chinese TV?

I don t see much "Wall Street type" capital going into bitcoin per se. Most of the news that are claimed to be about it are actually about investment in businesses that make sure money from other people moving bitcoin -- like BitPay, exchanges, software and hardware,  fund management, etc.  Funds like SMBIT do not invest in bitcoin, they act as intermediaries for their clients, who are the ones actually investing in bitcoin. 

One example of direct bitcoin investment that I knew was the Fortress investment group (not to be confused with the exchange TradeFortress).  But after bitcoin gave them a red stain in their quarterly report, they quietly swapped their bitcoins for shares of Pantera, the company that manages the PBP bitcoin-backed fund -- which will make money even if the price of bitcoin were to fall further.

Are there other examples of companies making a direct investment in bitcoins since December?

Hey, are you aware that I asked that myself, a couple of days ago?

Yes, to whom?

Cute... but if you check the Hubi or OKCoin charts, with 1h intervals, you will see that volume drops substantially during the late night hours.  (OKCoin still retains some signifcant volume, but Huobi's bars become mere dots.)

We will see their reaction in ~2 hours time.  Until then, there may be some reaction to the Western moves via arbitrage robots.