- A massive fat finger trade on the ICP chart is a reminder of one unfortunate trader’s mistake
- The buyer accidentally added a ‘0’ to his bid on the first day of trading on Binance, meaning they paid ten times the valuation
- Fat finger tardes can be avoided if a trade is not rushed and the details are double checked
At first glance the ICP chart on Binance seems to reflect a coin that simply collapsed after a hyped up listing, something that happens on a regular basis:
However, when we zoom out we observe a sight that will chill the bones of anyone who knows anything about charts:
That’s right, a buyer paid the equivalent of around $3,180 per ICP token, some ten times what it was trading at in the early exchanges. It could have been that the trader had extremely high hopes for ICP, but is much more likely that they accidentally added a ‘0’ to their bid, leaving them paying out over three grand per token, which dropped to $91 within a week.
Fat Finger Armageddon
This is a classic example of a ‘fat finger’, something that many traders experience once (and often only once) in their time. A fat finger can either, in this case make you pay way over the odds for a coin, or conversely make you sell your coin for way less than it is worth, causing the reverse on the chart – a deep red line heading south and then quickly back up again. In both cases it can lose you your entire portfolio with one tap of a phone screen or click of a mouse. This is a different experience to those who lose their whole portfolio leverage trading – it is pure accident.
In the case such as the ICP one above where a fat finger has caused you to pay over the odds, there is at least the hope that the coin might someday get back to that price and make you whole. If a fat finger has led to you selling too low then your only hope is the reverse – that that coin can drop back to that price, before ideally coming back up again.
Don’t Fall Victim – Check!
The way to avoid a fat finger is to take your time over your trades. Don’t rush them, and double check the value and the amount before you hit ‘sell’. Equally, make sure that you are clicking on ‘limit sell’ and not ‘market sell’, as a thin order book will exacerbate your loss.
As with many fat finger trades, the massive candle on the chart will act as a permanent reminder of the unfortunate trader’s mistake, whilst also screwing up the chart for everyone trying to trade it for several weeks! Make sure you don’t make your own accidental mark on a crypto chart – check and double check!
