[sqrt17]

No, but that's also what would happen when the stock market behaves weirdly enough. It's a good thing, though, that stock markets and foreign exchanges have more trading volume; I'm starting to wonder what happens if a random blokes with a million actual USD wants to game the bitcoin like George Soros did it with the Swedish kroner.

[pnathan]

As a note, when markets get really freaky, rollback of trades happen. I think the usual term I've read is "declared invalid".

[stef25]

Sorry for being off topic but do you have a link that explains how Soros games the kroner? Just out of genuine interest.

[sqrt17]

Actually the bigger event around it was the Black Friday in 1992: The Bank of England was hoping/pretending that the pound would stay strong against the FRG Mark, whereas Soros lent a massive amount of pound to other people. When the pound finally devalued, he could fulfill the lendings (at the cheaper pound price). The Swedish currency took similar damage.

Basically, governments trying to stabilize their currency are in danger of losses whenever they meet someone with even deeper pockets. In contrast, the Japanese government could out-trade Soros in the crash in 1987 and Soros had to pocket substantial losses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy_of_Sweden#1992