That Arbitrage Opportunity

Thanks to Gox shaking things up, we get awesome opportunities like this.

 

The $102 BTC-e sale was likely due to a trading system error rather than a whale actually cashing out. Around the same time this happened, many users reported that the MT4 trading program was locking them into positions without the ability to close them out.

I think it's silly to believe that an investor with millions in BTC (which is what was needed to create this spike) was willing to sell as low as $100 per coin. At the same time this transaction was done, prices on Bitstamp remained healthily above $500, with 1000's of BTC in market depth.

This investor would have had to be an absolute moron in every sense of the word to continue selling on BTC-e at prices 5x lower than other perfectly liquid exchanges. Someone who had the patience, funding, and investment confidence to hold this much BTC in the first place would be acting extremely out of the ordinary on a sell of this grandeur.

I think the other potential explanation for this sell is that these coins were stolen from MTGox or another exchange, and the perpetrator looked to exit his position before the funds were flagged. However, this is also extremely unlikely. This move attracted huge attention, and the transaction will surely be investigated. If you were worried about your funds being linked to fraudulent activity, why would you convert them to BTC-e USD?