You can get called without dipping bellow the minimum collateral ratio. When a settle order executes, if it cannot be satisfied by the order book, it will start eating the least collateralized debt positions until it is satisfied. Settle orderes delay execution by 24 hours, so it is best to keep an eye on the books for their appearance, and adjust collateral accordingly.
I got called on bitUSD the other night this way. I saw the settle order earlier in the day, checked other debt positions and adjusted my collateral so there were sufficient positions lower than mine that I would be safe. Then the price took a dip, and some of the positions bellow mine either increased their collateral and were called, pushing me back within the settlement order's reach. Lesson learned - just because 12 hours ago you were safe does not mean you still are.

Someone really ought to make a bot that can monitor your collateral ratios in their relation to settlement orders and other debt positions, and send xmpp notifications if action needs to be taken to avoid these situations. I would do it myself if I knew how, but unfortunately I haven't had the time to teach myself so far.

We need a more stable (or mirrored) block explorer. Cryptofresh is often down when I want to check the list of shorters and see where the least collateralised position is.

Wow, this is great advice. People often get too confident in their positions and think things will always go their way or forget to check them. I've learned from this as well and it's not fun. Always have your stops set so you lock in any profit that you may have. Thanks for sharing!

That hurts i guess. I'm wondering if you can share your experience on this trade. In fact, i like to applaud your courage by being so transparent and admitting your shortfalls. Many like to talk about their wins but never their losses.

I tried to borrow against the bitUSD and had the same thing happen. I set it with a margin of 3.50 but didn't watch it close enough and got called.  __Honestly though I am *LOVING* the learning experience!__  For me at this point the loss is just paying for an awesome education in what is the future of currency.  You keep influencing me to look at different crypto and strategies and I am thankful (even though I know you don't offer advice 😜).

Keep posting this stuff!

Wou, sounds tough, big game big losses/ big wins :)

Very sad story sir.. i'm also having a loss on crypto.. what to do..?

That is some terrible luck Luke, but thank you for sharing your story. In all likelihood this happens thousands of times more often than people are willing to share the pain.

Really enjoying everything you publish, hope you stick around a long time! =)

That is a horrible move mate...The risk of playing in that margin.  I couldn't say that has never happened to me. Happens to the best of us.

Luke, luke, luke...

One simply don't gamble with bts. In my mind a dollar each. But that is my mind. The market has a mind of it's own.

I have been a strong opponent of the hero introduction. Too confusing and too much to grasp for people who has never shorted ever. I think @stan has been more clear lately, still it has to be stated loud and clear: one simply don't fool around with the bts. 

Well, well. You state an example how difficult betting against the market is.

Sorry man... Taking some punches myself, but margin trading is beyond me (for now). On the bright side, now is a great time to pick up some Bitshares. They haven't been 0.15 cents in a while.

Ohh.. sorry for your loss sir.. yes the crypto market is down these days... Hopefully it will rise again... It will be better to wait for the right time to use it in the market... sometime we have to face this kind of experiences in our life... And we can't do anything..

Thanks for sharing this horrible experience with us @lukestokes.

Many of us are doing the same mistake when they purchasing and trading bit coin and other cryptocurrency. 

Your experience may matter a lot to them.

Hope you @lukestokes never do the same mistake because experience is the best teacher

nice article, all adds up values to me, steemit is for you man! cheers

@lukestones Damn it! 

But never mind, bud. It's a lesson you and us all have learnt now. Thanks for sharing..

Thanks for sharing the good, the bad and the UGLY. Sorry to hear, but I'm sure you are still WAY up in the grand scheme of your crypto dealings. It's impossible to not end up giving some of it back.

Ouch. Live and learn, I guess. I just you'll bounce back, man! You always do a great job being transparent here, Luke. I'm sure many people would learn from this and be more careful not to go through the same thing you outlined here.

I'm down close to 35K BTS, had shorted around 600 HERO at an average of 550 BTS/HERO, primarily based on Stan's 4th of July kickoff - I, like many others, assumed that when the HERO contest started there would be some serious and well organized market action to spike BTS and drop HERO, thereby creating the initial pump "Look at all of these people that are making a fortune with HERO, be like us! FOMO, away....!"

I still believe in HERO and it is a much needed asset in both fiat and crypto economies (imagine if you had 20-30% of your crypto in HERO prior to this crash, and now were able to go shopping!), but damn, if Stan is going to hype like he did there has to be some action to follow through.

We are all following Stan in Telegram and it sounds like he is making things happen, but there is a large misalignment between the hype and the reality. Hopefully his wealth investors are now taking huge short positions in HERO and getting ready to ramp BTS... for real this time.

Yup, margin trading sucks with crypto, u never know when that whale comes and sells ... cryptos are too volatile for that imo.

I never touch these things but I guess..gambling IS gambling.

This is a shame. Very sorry to hear about the margin call. I think logic was fine here and you just have to attribute it to bad luck. Best of luck in the future.

Thanks for the honest update. I really appreciate getting some on-the-ground knowledge outside of the sycophantic comments on Stan's HERO posts.

"*My previous posts on this topic make it sound like you can make free, easy money shorting the USD with BitShares.*"

This is exactly what everyone of Stan's posts sound like. They basically sound like salesmen (at best), with their Yogi bear pictures and their numerous Star Trek references. Not to mention MichaelX aka "Murderistic" on stage, with the "Banx" scammer running the Heronomex show behind the scenes. Love his falsely inflated statistics - the only concrete, fact-checkable thing he said in the video was a 5x understatement of Jamaican average salaries to attempt to make his point stronger. (He claimed it was under $40/month)

If you think I'm slinging mud, just check this thread. Michael has a legit breakdown and Stan responds to very valid observations about surrounding himself with (the appearnace of, at least) scammers and terrible attitudes repeatedly by simply ignoring the valid points, telling someone "You'll see" or "Just wait", then closing with a smiley emoji and a signature disclaimer not to listen to anything he says.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22957.0.html

Every time I ask in a HERO thread "how is a freely traded asset guaranteed to appreciate at 5% per year" they either ignore me or refer me to some Smart Coin definiton that states "In all but extreme times of illiquidity, these coins are programmed to do X". Then they go back to talking about how many degrees faster Star Trek Warp Speed is than a horse.

Of course, the only time you really need them to do what they are designed is exactly when things get illiquid. As you, unfortunately, appear to have found out.

I think a lot of people are going to get stopped out on this, and the idea of increasing BTS from a point where their $666,666 dollar prize is worth a billion is a pretty laughable claim. Well over 1000x gain.

I wouldn't touch a thing made by a group making these claims this way, and I have less than zero faith in any part of this team other than Stan. It's all really a shame because the idea is appealing, the technology should be there to make it work, and Stan "should" be more competent and confidence-inducing than this.

Even if you ignore everything I've already said above, there is no getting around that all Stan really ever says about the Hero is that it will make you rich and "everyone is going to use it, forget crypto enthusiasts and geeks, we will have mass adoption".

Please don't listen to Stan and his claims. These are the same claims he made when bitshares was launched originally. It was very much the same market climate (i.e. a bear market). The price of bitshares will continue to go down over the course of the next 6months. Buying BTS is foolish enough. Shorting anything in relation to BTS is pure madness.

Ouch.  It happens, dude. Nature of the beast.  Threw you a 100% up! Better luck next time though, I'm just holding the shit out of bts long-term.

Ouch! Sorry to hear that mate! :[
BTW, I just received my SBD deposit on poloniex exchange!

I am sorry for your loose. 😢😢
Some people lost maybe more that this. One of the biggest Bitcoin Exchanges was hacked the other days and a lot of people lost their data.
The news here: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@borban/bithumb-exchange-has-been-hacked-the-risk-involved-in-crypto-investment

I closed my BitUSD position a few days ago...at a lost. When a saw the price of BTS going to 0.20 I new it wasn't good. The next floor is probably at 0.11 USD. Oh well!

Gotta be careful with margin.  I wouldn't touch it myself, especially in crypto, it's very dangerous.  Sorry for your loss, I'm sure you'll recover and come back stronger and earn it back faster