Bitcoin

The bankruptcy of the once largest Bitcoin exchange may be history, but now the real drama begins.

The news last week that bitcoin's founder had been sort-of/maybe/not-so-much “found” got ConvergExs's Nick Colas thinking about the importance of creation myths in business and economics. A key part of bitcoin's current appeal is anonymity, so the fact that the digital currency’s inventor is unknown highlights that central value proposition. The tech industry is full of creation myths that resonate with both general social messages and specific business models.  Hewlett and Packard, Jobs and Woz, Page and Brin – all began their businesses in garages, showing that anything is possible with a great idea. However, as Colas details below, the truth behind all these stories is, of course, far more complex than the idealized creation myths we tell about them.

Mt. Gox’s lawyers confirmed 750,000 Bitcoins belonging to the firm’s customers had gone “missing”, along with around 100,000 units that the company owned. Alleged that it came under some 150,000 DDoS attacks per second for several days ahead of its spectacular failure.

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• Bitcoin exchange MtGox 'faced 150,000 hack attacks every second’ (Telegraph)
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With 40% of the portfolio in cash and having returned $4 billion to clients at year-end, Seth Klarman's Baupost Group has "drawn the line in the sand" as they reflect on the diminished opportunities in the so-called "Truman Show" market we see today. In the face of mixed economic data and at a critical inflection point in Federal Reserve policy, Klarman notes, the stock market, heading into 2014, resembles a Rorschach test - "what investors see in the inkblots says considerably more about them than it does about the market." From "born bulls" to "worry genes" and from Bitcoin to flash-mob-speculation, "there is a growing gap between the financial markets and the real economy...and the overall picture is one of growing risk and inadequate potential return almost everywhere one looks... as every 'Truman' under Bernanke’s dome knows the environment is phony."

"After digesting all the hyperbole and the pessimism, my biggest concern is not that Bitcoin will fail, but that it or one of its many virtual currency competitors will one day succeed."

While the volatility of Bitcoin has been considerable, perhaps merely reflective of the early days of a revolution, the fact that the "value experts" at the Fed have pronounced:

• *DUDLEY SAYS BITCOIN 'IS NOT VERY GOOD STORE OF VALUE'
• *DUDLEY SAYS 'U.S. DOLLAR WINS' OVER BITCOIN ACROSS MANY METRICS

..raised an eyebrow or two on our furrowed brows. We thought a look at the following two charts since the inception of Bitcoin and the inception of the Fed would help clarify "value" stability...

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Newsweek claims to have identified the mysterious creator of Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto - long believed to be a pseudonym - was hunted down through searches, conversations, and national archives: "It was only while scouring a database that contained the registration cards of naturalized U.S. citizens that a Satoshi Nakamoto turned up whose profile and background offered a potential match. But it was not until after ordering his records from the National Archives and conducting many more interviews that a cohesive picture began to take shape."  

Some remain skeptical that Newsweek have found him but making such a bold claim is aggressive and comments from Bitcoin lead developer Gavin Anderson suggest this is the real Satoshi.

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Most people, even most people in the C-suite of money center banks (the prime candidates for disintermediation), still have no clue as to what the promises, prospects & risks of Bitcoin are. Well, as UltraCoin launches into beta, these become crystal clear!

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The last few weeks have been dismally littered with two things. The virtual losses of virtual wealth from virtual currency speculation and the very real losses of very real humans with very real senior financial services positions. Sadly, as NewsWatch reports, tonight sees the two trends converge as the 28-year-old CEO of Singapore-based Bitcoin exchange First Meta has been found dead. The exact reason that may have led to the suicide is not known, and whether the Police have concluded that the cause of death is suicide is also unofficial.

Just six days after proudly proclaiming that it was unscathed by the Mt.Gox debacle, another Bitcoin bank - Flexcoin - has admitted that it will be forced to close after hackers stole 896 bitcoin, worth around $600,000, in an attack on Sunday. As The Guardian reports, the company shut its website and posted a statement on Tuesday morning detailing the loss..."as Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately."