This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Bitcoin Crashes 25% As Mt.Gox Halts Withdrawals
Mt.Gox, the largest exchange for the online digital currency, was forced to halt withdrawals (but not trading) this morning. Due to an increase in withdrawal requests the exchange's systems had technical problems and in order "to understand the issue thoroughly, the system must be in static state," they reported. The exchange said it would resolve the problem as soon as possible and "apologize[d] for the sudden short notice." Interestingly this seemed to rapidly remove Mt.Gox's modest premium to the other exchanges and bring them all back inline around $700 as the price recovered.
As Max Pelham noted (Coinwatch),
"People will be leaving Mt. Gox either way, the trust isn't already very high, and with this now people are going to trust them even less,"
"I think Mt. Gox is going to lose relevance even more now, they're not very forthcoming in their public relations, their technical problems and their withdrawal problems aren't going away. Even if they fix it now, the withdrawal problem still remains with USD and Euro withdrawals."
- 26640 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -



I hope everyone likes tulips
yawn. btfd. wake me up @BTC $950 (again)
That creamy feeling Fonestar was talking about yesterday was him definetly watching his "net worth" vanish into bitcoin abyss.
How could anyone possibly think the govt/police states of the world will allow transactions in bitcoin after the crash. It threatens their power and dominance and therefore will not be allowed to be used in trade. Of course it will not be illegal to HOLD them only to SPEND them.
CyprusCOIN Bitchez!!!
When intrinsic value = nothing, trust = everything. Proceed at own peril.
Bitcoin could go to $500.
fonestar does not care.
Surprise Surprise. Like I said before...would you rather have an oz of gold for ~$1K, or a fairy tale currency? Easy answer to that one, even if BTC were $250.
Reality is ....we already have one fantasy land currency, we don't need two.
If that's not an inside job, what is?
Bitcoin is controlled just like getting large cash withdrawls from the bank.
Bitcoin is controlled... by the sum total of all buyers and sellers of Bitcoin on the various exchanges.
Ha! Yeah this is normal price discovery.
....right
Correct. This is what price discovery looks like on thinly traded markets.
So the largest exchange in a thinly traded market can't handle what should be nominal withdrawl requests.
I'm shocked to hear that Bitcoin hasn't proven itself to be a stabile effective medium for monetary exchange.
No hope unless the irs starts taking btc
Criswell predicts:
1) Mt.Gox is profoundly fucked and will soon go down.
2) Bitcoin will be displaced by some new altcoin(s) of
far more advanced design.
3) new exchanges will suffer the risks of accepting credit card and Paypal deposits as this is absolutely necessary for altcoinage to go mainstream and for the long term success of any exchange
The FT article discussed in zerohedge, yesterday, might be right: the big boys might use altcoin to go all electronic, and thus to keep tabs on your every purchase of alcohol, cigarettes, candy, bullets, books by Noam Chomsky....
if I had listened to fonestar last week i would be 25% poorer with limited withdrawal capacity....i'll stick to precious metals. When i lose 25% their at least i know i have them
Again, you have no clue what your talking about. It's the same blockhain whether you trade at Mt.Gox, BTC-E or BTC China. And if a measely 25% pullback (it wasn't even that on BTC-E) makes you shit your pants you shouldn't be in Bitcoin to begin with.
My, how times change.
One week its "the honest currency", reliant on (only...lol...power-internet-devices & encryption) the people for its value. The next, you're advising people that 7-25% swings in dollar price are perfectly normal for BitCoin.
Currency is supposed to be stable (at least, short term) so goods & services...that is, buyers & sellers can clear their transactions and neither side ever thinks they got hoodooed. And again, real money relies on nothing but itself, for a trusting, honest exchange.
Any other black magic currency advice you'd like to give the ZH crowd, who've seen all this bullshit before or was this investment advice all along? ;-)
Bitcoin was $792 last night on BTC-E. Now it is $737. Um...... 25% ??????? Seems more like 7% to fonestar.
Does not compute.
all money spent on bitcoin is burned money. such is bitcoin life.
all money spent on bitcoin is burned money. such is bitcoin life.
edit: double reply
Bitcoin is controlled... by the sum total of all buyers and sellers of Bitcoin on the various exchanges.
So explain to me how, in practice, that differs from anyone 'controlling' the paper price of Au or Ag by way of 'flooding' an exchange with leverage & naked option contracts? [other than HOPE that the 'total sum' you refer to is actually individuals using incremental buy/sell orders, versus one large player who has a large stash of bitcoins scattered over thousands of dummy accounts]?
IOW ~ How do you know that, Winklevoss, for example, hasn't scattered his holdings into 10,'s of thousands of smaller wallets? [or some such scenario]
How do you know that JPM/Blythe haven't already set up & funded a couple of million wallets of very small sizes, [making them look like 'mini-fonestars'], and can thus trigger massive moves at will?
The fact is, you don't know. I mean, fuck, if an idiot like me can think up such a scheme, what do you imagine the criminals have thought of?
There are no markets for Au and Ag. There are paper contracts for Au and Ag that allow them to be naked shorted. I think the difference should be pretty clear for anyone with a two-digit IQ. Not going to waste time on this.
It's because you don't have a viable answer...
The plain fuck fact of the matter is that bitcoin is treated as a 'commodity' [posing as a currency]... & it will be this way until it DROPS it's association with the DOLLAR [or any other fiat currency]... If the dollar goes bye bye tomorrow, not one person will have the slightest fucking idea of what a bitcoin is supposedly worth... Mostly because it has no attachment to LABOR...
Hell ~ it's 'priced' in dollars as we speak [and still can't settle at finding a rightful value save for the wranglings of buyers & sellers who resemble POKEMON CARD, or BEANIE BABY, or TULIP traders]...
Since you're not going to 'waste your time' answering my question [because you don't have an answer], I'll answer it for you... You have NO FUCKING WAY IN THE WORLD of knowing, say, in the past year [& because of the relatively low TOTAL value of the bitcoin market], that central banks, worldwide, haven't already set up millions of small dummy accounts, and funded them with printed dollars [not unlike the billions of $100, on pallettes, dropped into Iraq]...
Maybe that hasn't happened... But just the idea that it could be that fucking easy to overrun this piss puddle market ought to tell anyone all they need to know...
There are very few Bitcoins being offered at market. Most are hoarded or already lost forever. I've already given you your answer and the fact that you refer to Au and Ag "markets" (as if they were legitimate) just highlights your ignorance.
Mt Gox is not a "market"?... Please tell me what it is then... & don't tell me it's a fucking 'EXCHANGE' [because an 'EXCHANGE' is a 'MARKET' ~ where price discovery is made [manipulated or not].
More like MtGox was a market. It's less and less relevant each passing day.
fonestar has never even traded there.
I never bought/sold at Mt Gox either. Mt Gox always had a high premium (higher $ price for BTC) vs. the other guys, I do not know why. I just used some of my BTC to buy some gold, will do so again before long.
***
1:35 PM US ET: BTC has partly clawed back its losses:
$740
Mt Gox does not allow withdrawals in USD after their bank accounts in the US got seized by the feds.
Therefore, if you have USD in an Mt Gox account, the only way to withdraw that would be to buy BTC on the market with it and then transfer the BTC out. This buying pressure caused the price of BTC on Mt Gox to be higher than other markets.
Well now THAT'S reassuring!... In any case, my simple point [above], is that this is a *MARKET* [which is confirmed by the various responses]... As such, my point in comparing that characteristic of it to Au & Ag [which fonestar tried to refute], is invalid...
I just told you there are no markets for Au and Ag. What part of that did you not fucking understand?
Well then, I'll be sure to relay that message to my local CS merchant... He'll be happy that you put him out of business & that he NO LONGER has to annoyingly check 'SPOT PRICES', by computer, to transact over the counter with customers...
When I see an international warehouse where I can put some physical ASE, Maples, Buffaloes, whatever on the table, walk away with cash and that is how the price is set, then and only then will I accept there is a price for Au and Ag.
Yeah ~ I fucking guess...
I remember last APRIL, [when BTC was doing it's first 'flurry' to up around 2 bills & a half]... The MOST LAUGHABLE thing is that you were:
- PUBLICLY BRAGGING [on an open internet forum]
- about your 'PROFITS' on the BTC wave
- right around TAX TIME [April 15]
Nevermind that...
What was EVEN MORE HILARIOUS is that AFTER BTC peaked & crashed, you were bragging about how you were 'diversified' [& thereby running all your money into Ag ~ when it was still north of $30]...
EVERY step of the way, all your input would be construed [by any obserever], as being zealous speculator [spliced with the occasional techno babble justification that others simply didn't understand how ADVANCED you were]...
WTFever
~~~
If you're such a bitcoin GOD... Why the fuck aren't you out driving your LAMBO right now picking up pussy instead of wasting your time with us?...
How the fuck many BITCOINS does it take to move out of your mothers basement for chrissakes?
There are very few Bitcoins being offered at market.
Just curious, if my local coin stores sell 'very few' coins, then isn't that a market? It apparently is for Bitcoin. If not, why not?
If you're paying attention, fonestar AVOIDED my previous question...
The fact of the matter is that BITCOIN is, in fact, a 'market' [just like gold, silver, orange juice, pork bellies, or even other fiat currencies]... It '*HAPPENS* to also have found a niche as being accepted as a currency...
The *MARKET* characteristic is 1000x more compelling [which is evidenced by the numerous thread bytes dedicated to PRICE FLUCTUATIONS ~ versus the relatively few & uninteresting details about which comic books & pizzas fonestar bought last week using bitcoins]
The *EVEN MORE* compelling fact is that, as a market, it is subject to the same whims, [as I've hypothesized above & below], as any other MARKET by some entity with a dedicated [& possibily criminal] interest in doing so...
I'm paying attention. I was attempting to Capt Kirk his Nomad
Your post was stupid (and the answers are obvious). Too much stupidity here on the subject of Bitcoin, take a number fonestar has only so much time.
Was my post that you whisked right by stupid or did you just not have an answer that doesn't indicate you're an imbecile?
Foneystar destroys his own arguments with alarming regularity. Pretty hilarious.
Bitcoin gets it's value from the number of people using it's network. The more people using it, the more valuable it is.
I'm holding & BTFD
-zulu
Bitcoin gets it's value from the number of people using it's network.
WONDERFUL! ~ Then I'm going to be Jamie Dimon & Lloyd Blankfein... I'm going to have the FED print me $20 billion dollars [about a weeks worth of QE]... Then I'm going to have some pimply faced MIT interns set up 100 million accounts [satisfying my number of people problem], & I'm going to fund them all by incrementally buying, at market, anonymous bitcoin wallets, coming from all parts of the world... all for small amounts ranging from .25 BTC to 1 BTC... [&/or in a way that nobody sees me as a WHALE]...
Then ~ in a manner similar to HFT algos, I'll periodically send a 'jolt' through the market by firing off random sequences of buy and sell from various configurations of accounts...
~~~
When fonestar explains to me, in all his geek fueled wisdom, how a scenario like that [or a dozen 'others' that I could probably think of off the top of my head ~ & mostly having to do with the relative *LACK OF* of size of the bitcoin market, to which he himself has acknowledged that MOST of it is CRYPTO INERT ~ VERSUS:
- The MASSIVE amount of otherwise COUNTERFIAT money that is floating around the planet
- The ease at which its printers can control the supply
- Their intentions in doing so [in order to perpetuate the franchise for as long as possible ~ which include: mass murder & genocide of people who supposedly belong to their own tribe, for the effect of mass 'generational' propaganda ~ & which manifestly are known as WORLD WARS], & basically, otherwise, whatever OTHER means possible that haven't even been practiced yet.
- Their [formerly conspiracy THEORY], cum lately [conspiracy FACT] admissions of controlling EVERY market from LIBOR, to precious metals, to energy, to weather, to fucking earthquakes for chrissakes
- The idea that they would DRAW THE LINE at bitcoin... &, in a sense, NOT GO THERE because of their fear of being taken down by fonestar & his hotpockets, comic book, star trek convention crew
Jesus tapdancing Christ...
The ball is in your court fonestar... Explain to me how NONE of that could ever happen... Because if it can't be proven, than it makes more sense to invest in a bowl of spaghetti than to waste time with bitcoins...
I'm not sure I understand your argument: because BTC can be manipulated like gold can, they both suck?
Basically the only advantage in this regard is that taking delivery of BTC is a trivial process provided by the Bitcoin network and blockchain. Making paper claims on bitcoins doesn't make much sense and incurs an overhead. In relation to the current article, until they fix their redemption issues, all the trading currently taking place on Mt.Gox is paper trading.
Bullshit. The "market" for Au and Ag occurs when a buyer and a seller get together and exchange a set amount of a tangible good for an agreed upon price. The only difference between that and a bitcoin transaction is that there is an actual tangible good being exchanged and not a string of numbers that is dependent on the ether for its existence.
Futures markets shouldn't be considered markets anymore, and should probably be renamed, since their primary reason for existence--price discovery--has been made invalid by large actor price manipulation.
So if it shouldn't be included why do gold & silver buyers and sellers keep looking at the COMEX price then?
Force of habit and/or ignorance.
Genius of BitCoin is mathematical limit of number of coin, so value cannot be dilution. Of course, intrinsic value = 0, so dilution of zero is not consequential.
Bitcoins dilution is in decimal points...
Floating point magic.
Bitcoins dilution is in decimal points...
~~~
That's reassuring!
Because Jane 'Mainstreet' Housewife was simply WAITING for the moment that she could go to the local A&P, check the discount values on volumes of 28oz of tomato sauce cans, & CONFIDENTLY understand how to VALUE SHOP by pulling out her '.000000324768327469' ... OH WAIT ''.0000003247684686745' ... OH WAIT ''.0000003247683353456' crypto wallet to make the purchase...
I can see BILLIONS of converts in 5...4...3...2...
Shopping Cart SPRINT lineup is going to replace NASCAR as the hottest spectator sport at WALMART...
BitCoin is not use for purchase tomato sauce, is use for purchase contraband drug and expire prescription pharmaceutical. So now drug dealer is need graph calculator with 16 digit float point accuracy. What is big deal!?
The differences in your decimal examples equate to 1/1000th of a percent. Who knows, someday Bitcoin may decrease in volatility. Merchants that accept bitcoin for payment have developed various methods to handle volatility risk, as is their right.
"Mt. Gox, the Japan-based Bitcoin exchange, was forced to halt all currency withdrawals "
dont forget, controlled by the very exchanges themselves.
Right, so keep the dollar and get rid of bitcoin.
You can seriously fuck yourself with an 8 ft cactus with that sentiment. Seriously.
ah! Cactus I see.
http://www.phonelosers.org/
You know Tmosley, I think I have finally figured you out.
Back in early 2011, when silver was spiking, I defended you against Trav and the other silver naysayers because I thought you were posting in a spirit of being generally pro-precious metals. But when I think back on the tone of your posts back then, combined with your hypersensitive and kneejerk defenses of Bitcoin today, and your rabid and vitriolic attacks on anyone even questioning Bitcoin, I can see quite clearly that you are probably merely jumping from one "to the moon!" investment trend to another in the hopes of getting rich quickly with minimal effort.
In your bitter, hate-filled attacks on those who have rightly questioned, and continue to question, Bitcoin and the very concept of cybercurrencies, you have turned into your own worst enemy, and become "Trav" yourself.
Tmosley, I used to consider you a comrade in arms and a buddy here on ZH, but your raging dickishness lately has fully disabused me of that notion.
+1 'raging disckishness'
RIP Trav, LongSoupLines, Otto, and Franics Sawyer. I didn't always agree with their posts but they lead me to some insightful research topics, well not LongSoupLines, he just swore at the FED.
@Creeps
~~~
The kings are gone [BUT THEY'RE NOT FORGOTTEN]... Don't forget Slewie, Cheeky Bastard, Lennon Hendrix, & others either... Where is hedgeless_horseman lately? [just askin']...
~When you're OUT OF THE BLUE [& into the black]
Well, good; that puts you and me in line with the other 6,987,654,000 people who don't care either.
Most people are slow adopters (losers) that don't get new technology. No surprises here.
right now owning bitcoin and gold is like being a little guy in jail with two assholes.
....supposing you want to sell them for dollars I guess.
@ fonz
Yeah, I feel the pain, but it's short-term. I hope...
It's not a technology. Bitcoin is a solution to a mathematical equation with a very simple computer program wrapped around it. That is not a technology.
Oh, and some understand it completely and see the possibility of those bits and bytes disappearing into an ethereal haze
...moral of the story, if you do not hold it, ya don't own it.
Period (.)
Phoneystar will care when it is no longer used as a medium of exchange. Hope you're buying the dip.
............
................................B T F D
.................................................................
Bitcoin is NOT a currency, it's a service framework. Gosh!
protocol
What about when it goes to $0?
who cares.. bought at $630 last night and sold $744 this morning.. you guys are all pussys
I used to say the EXACT same thing about Pets.com.
Yeah, sure you did. Everyone is a fucking investing genius on an Internet blog.
I've been posting over and over on here many trades and people like you just comment crap.. back when silver was 48 and gold 1900 I was on here telling people to sell.. and not every stinking day up to it either. I posted when I sold
I also tried to tell you clowns last spring to get into bitcoin and all you clowns were jackasses.. I am well over 4x gains and playing with house money so not hard for me to make more on large dips and bounces..
anyway.. do you even trade?????????
So you admit to being a pathological liar.
$500 in zimbabwe currency?
Yes, but you will care if it goes to zero.
...and the crowd will applaud acrimoniously
@fonestar
Hey man, just checking in - looks like the barking seal troll retards are monkeyhammering Bitcoin over the idiot Gox exchange.
I've told them that Gox isn't the market leader, but they'll forget that, naturally. Even as I type, 718 on Bitstamp, putting it over 2/3rds from where it started. I suppose Tyler is a bit mad that the stock market rallied, so he had to put in another Bitcoin chart - with an expanded price axis for extra emphasis.
Anyway, just the usual deal - didn't pick up any on the last dip, but some people got orders resting low. Lucky bastards. Don't let the usual fools get you down man, this trip isn't over yet - and I'm sure after the fourth?, fifth? time Bitcoin has been declared "dead", it will go on doing what it usually does - rally like a Saturn V rocket.
Have a good one, and don't waste too much time here - they'll never listen.
Not a big fan of BTC, like the idea, it still needs tweaking but intrinsic value does not exist. It's a falacious argument IMO.
Bitcoin isn't spent. It is moved across the borders to somewhere it can become currency and be spent, on maybe a house.
Its value is its mobility during capital controls. Nothing, repeat, nothing else has it.
They could put the genital clamp on Bitcoin too. Don't delude yourself.
Is Bitcoin a boy or a girl?
They have genital clamps for both. Actually thats a reference to the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a late 80's Steve Martin movie, lol.
Well said Crash.
Re Crash & fonestar, correct
I pass along my experience with gold at airports in a post below.
Fuck bitcoin.
fuck the technophobic luddites!
All those "technophobic Luddites" are going to increasingly have the last laugh as they efficiently work their homesteads and engage in local trade, independent of ever-increasing systemic disruptions due to over-reliance on overly complicated administrative systems, untenable JIT delivery networks, crumbling infrastructure, and increasing energy costs.
then please leave the internet and go on your local FIDO net BBS ok?
No thanks. I actually prefer a more balanced strategy based upon a "hope for the best, plan for the worst" approach. Basically, I take advantage of all of the percs or modernity, while ensuring a baseline of resiliency and self reliance through local independent infrastructure. In short: Work the hell out of the city job in order to get the rural homestead tuned-up for both on AND off-grid living.
Win/win.
so a p2p payment ledger isn't something to take advantage of? sure the price of bitcoin is going through tight float swings but its utility is as promising as the internet itself..
You can go up the Mt Gox, but you mightn't be able to get back down again....
And you won't be in 'steady state', that's for sure!
And when the internet is down (which they will do) ?
It will severely damage but not kill BTC, IIUC. But, think for a moment: how likely is it that they would crash the internet?
Not very, IMO. Probabilities of outcomes matter too, not just possibilities.
As with everything tho DoChen, they can shut the internet off for the masses, and leave it on for themselves.
Yes, I supose they could do that. But where would they draw the line? For example, our business in Peru does a lot of our business with Asia via the internet.
LOTS of people would get hurt badly if they cut 'er off.
Revolution....
DoChen, I respect your comments immensely and the verdict is still out regarding Bitcoin for me, but it just hit me when I went to this site: https://ounce.me/
If I gave someone an ounce of silver (a Silver Eagle), I would get back .026 Bitcoin....a physical ounce of silver bullion and I get back what?
The Central Bank of DoChenRollingBearing holds a lot more value of Au (and even Ag) than it does BTC.
BTC is an interesting technology that may hold great value in the near future. Do I know? Of course not.
Education is also sometimes expensive. But, for now, the plusses outweigh the minuses.
***
https://ounce.me/ is an interesting site, a nice chunk of important numbers all in one place.
Dupe, sorry. ZH ad did me in! Zero Hedge / Tylers! Please try to make some of the intrusive ads less confusing to zap....
DCRB .... install an add blocker... I like Ghostery .. there are others
'Its value is its mobility during capital controls'
This is an honest question and not sarc....if Mt. Gox is controlling withdraws, doesn't that affect mobilty ? Or is it because they are still allowing trading, that one can utilize Bitcoins for purchases, etc..in effect still being 'mobile' ?
Does that mean it's 'semi-mobile' ?
Is this like a bank stating I can't withdraw any money, but I can still use my bank issued credit card ?
Mt. Gox is just an exchange. Something that converts one currency into another. This can be done on other exchanges or in person without any involvement of Gox.
Banks are what people use to store their money today. With Bitcoin, everyone can store and electronically transfer funds to each other and buy items without involving a third party. Effectively, you are your own bank.
The problem is that in order for people to know what their BTC is worth, it is easiest to go to a central point like an exchange and see what thousands of others consider fair market value. Gox has historically been used as the "authoritative" source of price so when it sneezes, BTC catches a cold.
A decentralized exchange would be best, but very difficult to create although many are trying. So, instead, we have to be happy with more exchanges opening to diffuse any Gox meltdown which happens from time to time.
Some very trusting people choose to keep their money and BTC in Gox. They are now experiencing counterparty risk.
DOE...thanks for that explanation. Clears things up a bit for me.
Counterparty risk...that's not good. Chalk one up for physical PM's held in hand on that front.
Anyone who exchanges a real, tangible house for a series of 1's and 0's that someone has conjured out of thin air is an idiot, no different from someone who wires money to the Prince of Nigeria.
The process of Bitcoin creation is slighty more difficult than the US Fed's process of creating money. My understanding is that the latter requires only an entry into a spreadsheet. Yet many people still choose to trade tangibles for US Dollars. Why?
I view US Dollars as a bearer debt of unknown maturity. It's a debt hot potato, and the person holding it when the music stops loses.
It's a new technology and there will be glitches. I've used coinbase with ease. No probs so far. It takes time to get this stuff to work. And while they fix it I buy the dips;) mt. Gox was never on my to trade with list. The technology will get fixed and get better. But if people wanna run for their lives let them!
That's exactly what you do when you buy a house. You get a real tangible house and wire some numbers from one number (your account) to another number (their account). Unless you buy your house using some other commodity...
Except Federal Reserve Notes are legal tender in the U.S. for all debts public and private. Bitcoins are not.
Neither is gold or silver. Not sure what your point is.
Russia bans it. Florida cracks down on the exchanges. Go Bitcoin! /s
nah. The Powers that Be will just turn BTC into another "legitimate" (that is, taxable, manipulated, grabbable) investment instrument
that is a very real possibility (in your conspiracy addled brain).
My gold and silver are still working just fine.
Yes, it's CHILDISH to think Bitcoin is going to unseat the most powerful. Utter childish foolishness. If it ever had a prayer of doing so, they'd just change the rules and render it irrelevant, wiping it right off the MSM talking points and relegating it to a future double Jeopardy question.
Oh look, the trench coat-wearing, kiddie diddling bond investor is back!
.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1y7GZL/:WU92w1if:G81_$UFH/www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/08/bitcoins-lemonade-stand_n_4563348.html...
These Girls Accept Bitcoins At Their Lemonade Stand, San Fran...A lot of people got GOXED today... red abounds
NO ! It can't be. I know because a fifteen year old computer hacker explained the whole thing to me; bitcoin is perfect and untouchable. Is noting Sacred ?
MtGox is not bitcoin; MtGox is an exchange (and increasingly and irrelevant exchange to boot).
If a precious metals dealer goes under or otherwise stops sending out orders, is that a knock against precious metals?
This was always the weak point of BTC, could there be a peer to peer type exchange sort of like uTorrent? I have mined a couple of BTC but my Ag and Au is looking pretty shiny right now. I think you're right though MtGox in not BTC
hard for ag and au to lose that shine :D
fwiw: mastercoin, bitshares, and ethereum are each attempting a distributed exchange this year. maybe it happens? who knows.
You are looking for Over The Counter (OTC) trades ... try localbitcoins.com ... that is all peer-to-peer, with escrow and OTC to avoid banks is one of the options.
Available in every country that I can think of.
That's so sad. I bought some groovy stuff with bitcoin. Bitches.
BTC is anti-bank. Let me tell you what that means in practical terms. It means that individual vendors and exchanges do not pool together their funds and there is no central authority to shuffle and inject so-called liquidity where it's needed. No armored van showing up at a branch the night before anticipated withdrawals. No printing presses ramping up ahead of a credit shock. It's both, good and bad.
When the exchange rate of BTC rises, it's all fine and dandy until someone decides to exchange it for standard currency.
Say, I open a BTC exchange. I manage to acquire an initial sum of 100 bitcoins either through mining, standard commerce (selling products and services), or as an investment. I offer them for sale. People come in and buy my 100 coins for a number of US dollars. Then due to some external action, having nothing to do with my business, demand for bitcons rises and their value against the USD rises 10 fold. Now the customers who bought the 100 coins from me come back and say they want 10x of USD back. Do I have 10x more USD to honor these transactions? No. Because I got my funds when the rate was low, now the rate is high. My fiat didn't magically multiply 10x just because someone at some other exchange saw an influx of bids. That other entity likely didn't share any of the funds with me. Remember - it's decentralized. Exchanges do as much direct business with eachother as pizza parlors and abortion clinics.
Every exchange is pretty much on its own, managing inflows of currencies through razor-thin magrins and snail-pace verivication procedures (compared to standard banking).
When the value of bitcon spikes, everyone feels rich, but when gamblers go back to the checkout window, they find that places like Mt. Gox, don't actually have the money for every BTC that might boomerang back and the BTC economy isn't robust enough to allow rapid conversion of assets, like it's done in standard banking.
BTC exchanges aren't currency trade floors. They're organized closed-pool gambling houses.
And not to bash bitcoin - many online gold traders such as The Bullion Vault, operate exactly the same way. Read their redemption policies. They're almost identical to BTC. You can inject as much money into them as you want. Just don't expect all (or any of it) back when people start selling.
BTC vendors operate on the rising edge. Small places close shop whenever the price dips below their internal margin. Big players like Mt. Gox, simply halt redemptions and wait for price recovery.
Good point for market maker but if you only matched buy and sell order then you only transfer money from one client account to another, not yours to them.
A lot of tulips coming up for sale soon.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/16/the-feds-are-ready-to-sell-the-silk-road-bitcoin-kind-of/
The future will be DAE. - Distributed Autonomous Exchanges.
Welcome to counterparty risk, bitcoin. With limited direct puchasing power, BTC's main appeal is its convertability to cash. Which now seems imperiled. How about Bitstamp etc. - are they solvent? Can anyone outside the companies even know?
Someone with a lot of bitcoins and a lot of cash had better get in touch with MTGox. If MtGox is seen as openly stealing the cash in trader accounts, your bitcoins are going to plunge.
As far as I can tell, Mt. Gox owes a lot of money to a lot of people, and won't pay it back. The question is: "won't pay it back" or "can't pay it back"???
This doesn't really make any sense. Direct purchasing power is not impacted at all. Convertability to cash isn't imperiled...unless you are trying to convert using Mt. Gox. Who cares what is wrong with Bitstamp?
Gox has failed before and will likely have problems in the future. Bitcoin has plunged before there is nothing new here. Gox can disappear off the face of the map and Bitcoin will still function....minus a few upset people who were using a foreign beta currency exchange as a bank.
Distributed Autonomous Exchanges.
I keep hearing that mentioned these days. Is this just a theoretical concept, like time travel? Or is there some grounding in it, when people say 'they are working on it'?
To be an exchange, there would need to be a pool of convertible currencies, right?
Would this just exist in a kind of pool of users cash? Otherwise, surely there is needed for a central depository??
*Which is what a bank/exchange is.
Like time-travel. I understand what the concept means, I just don't understand how technology would make it possible.
Aye, sort of the holy grail of distributed technologies.
Projects like Open Transactions and Ripple show progress.
Buy the catastrophic implosion!
Why such a droopy face Fonestar?
he's too busy buying with both hands to put a frown on.
"Why such a droopy face Fonestar?"
He just had a Depends moment.
OMG!!!!
END OF BITCOIN!!!!! TOO VOLATILE!!!! SEX SLAVES!! MONEY LAUNDERING!!!
RUUUUUNNNNNN YOUR CHILDREN AREN'T SAFE!!
Sweet, another buying opportunity.
$36 silver called and wants it's battle-cry back.
You can buy silver too.
Bitcoin is a unique opportunity to diversify while remaining outside of the system. Only fools who think bitcoin competes with gold rather than complimenting it disparage it.
Seriously, those disparaging bitcoin are on the side of KRUGMAN.
They've said several times here in their own words that they would rather side with the Fed and paper dollars than Bitcoin.
Frauds and traitors.
Here's the problem - Fonestar and other bitcoin accolytes were promoting it based on the idea that bitcoin was headed to the moon. That it would reach 5- or 6-figures and investor in bitcoin would be rich. Look at the three month chart of bitcoin. It's floundering around, going nowhere. Why should I take the redemption risk of bitcoin as compared to officially-sanctioned currencies when I'm not getting a return. I know the secrecy argument, but I'm not drug dealer so I don't really need to hide my transactions.
Three whole months? What about six?
It all depends on where you draw the start and end lines.
Both of you guys are seriously mentally ill when it comes to what gold buyers think or believe. Frauds and traitors?
Two words for both of you. GET FUCKED.
Technically speaking, I prefer being enlisted as a Krugmanite to being a bagholder...
Woudn't bagholder be synonymous with ballchinian?
http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070608080732/aliens/images/3/3d/Ballchinian.jpg
I truly hope it will be a bitcoin flag raised over the rubble of the Fed. Like most of us, the only blind allegience I hold is truth and I support all forms of it but c'mon, we all know this will end in tears. There is a direct correlation between the assuredness of a new better best and it's spectacular demise. That says nothing to the validity of the underlying product, but rather flying too close to the sun.