Altcoin News: Kraken Users Bought Bitcoin for $8,000 and Sold for $12,000 Due to a Bug

September 16, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

The Kraken cryptocurrency exchange on Twitter announced the occurrence of a bug on its trading platform, which led to a comparison of applications “from the wrong side of the glass.” The incident occurred on the evening of September 13th.

The bug arose as a result of testing an advanced order type not yet presented on the exchange. Some customers bought Bitcoin from a tester for $8,000, while others sold for $12,000 without spending liquidity in between, the company explains.

Image credit: Kraken on Twitter

Thus, transactions due to a bug were carried out only at the maximum and minimum prices in the range with users who had active orders at the indicated levels.

“While the candle gives the impression that liquidity was exhausted between $8–12k, the wicks on either side are hollow,” adds Kraken. “Stops in the range of $8–12k were triggered. Stop market orders were correctly filled at market price (best bid/ask available).”

The exchange also recommended that users involved in the incident contact them to clarify their questions, later publicly announcing that they would not roll back transactions and take on any losses incurred. At the same time, they could not avoid their share of criticism due to the execution of stop orders.

“So, because a bug is discovered in a limited production beta once every few years it means there’s no testing? Our new order types undergo thousands of automated and human tests for months before they make it to prod. You can’t find all the bugs all the time.” wrote Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken.

Author: Marko Vidrih