This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Bitcoin Prices Slide After Mt.Gox CEO Resigns From Foundation Board
In what appears yet another straw on the camel's back of Mt.Gox (following the re-freeze of account withdrawals), the Bitcoin Foundation this evening reported that:
"effective immediately, Mt. Gox has submitted their resignation from the board of directors."
Bitcoin prices on the dying exchange tumbled on the announcement after quite an extreme volatility day - which saw prices swing from $151 to $239 and then down to $190 on the news.
Mt. Gox Resigns Bitcoin Foundation Board Seat
Jon Matonis Feb 23 2014
Effective immediately, Mt. Gox has submitted their resignation from the board of directors. We are grateful for their early and valuable contributions as a founding member in launching the Bitcoin Foundation. MtGox Co. Ltd. (Japan) held one of the three elected industry member seats.
Further details, including election procedures, will be forthcoming.
There is still no further updates on when Mt.Gox will resume withdrawals.
This is the second time in recent months that a senior Bitcoin Foundation member and Board Member has resigned from the position under a cloud. BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem, who was the Board’s vice chairman, also resigned in late January after his arrest over allegations of money laundering.
»
- 21984 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Damn acronyms, what's PAL in your context here again?
He is managed by a PAL (Physical Abstraction Layer). This is just an intermediary layer that will be improved on over coming months and years. Ultimately it is the virtual persona who will control PAL.
We are superior beings!
What the fuck are you talking about?
Yes, please, define Physical Abstraction Layer for us old ignoramouses. Acronyms are fun because you can pretend to be smart when using them. API, PAL, etc.
Is this it?
https://pal.sri.com/Plone/framework/Components
From our friends at DARPA ?
https://pal.sri.com/Plone/framework
EDIT: My bad. Thanks for the clarification.
Correct, along those lines at least. But fonestar is an application-specific persona managed by PAL to introduce the Bitcoin in time.
Ironic that the latest layer is called physical yet it is taking on such a synthetic and virtual construction
Resistance is futile!
But not anymore futile than buttcoin itself !. Laughing too hard to type.
OMG it's a machine which appears to be unable to lie, so I'll have a go at some questions.
Hi fonestar, have you heard the rumour that Bitcoin was developed by an intelligence agency as a means to get people used to a cashless, digital, global money system?
That seems to make sense when fonestar is an application-specific persona designed to introduce the Bitcoin over time, when no actual human would plug away like fonestar does.
Fonestar is programmed to never give up. Correct?
Danger Will Robinson!
fonestar will never give up. If you are concerned about a global one world currency fonestar believes you will be very concerned with what comes after that.
Congrats on the first greenie I've ever given to you. I think what comes after is really going to be... well.. Biblical.
You're a loser, pal.
HAL or PAL?
Open the qox-bay doors, PAL!
"Sorry, I can't do that, Dave"
Personal Ass Licker
I still prefer NTSC.
Remus is obviously the best influence upon Fonestarus and Remus will continue to speak of himself in third person if it pleases Remus.
Shit dude. Tough crowd. You're getting down voted for stating facts now. I down voted you so as not to blemish your perfect 15-0 score.
I find it quite amusing, and telling, how every one of the bitcoin cultists now claim Mt.Gox, which was the largest bitcoin exchange, is now totally irrelevant. Even funnier still, is that Mt.Gox is an abbreviation for Magic the Gathering OnLine Exchange. The largest bitcoin exchange started out as a digital playing card trading site! LOL!! There seems to be no shortage of greater fools, so........BTFD!!!! They should have called it Hotel California......you can check out, but you can never leave.
If ifs and buts were beer and nuts, we'd all be getting laid tonight.
I know better than to wish for such a thing.
I wish for safe, free money.
Obviously that wish will not be granted but of all the possible ways to attempt this foolish goal, bitcon is one of the worst ever.
Dude you have invested in beanie babies on steroids. Every now and then all of us get burned by a "good idea" Here is a fork and a crow. Now get busy and start eating it.
Bitcoin is going to contunue its hyperdeflationary trajectory into five, six and seven digits at which time it will result in dollar panic (supposing of course the dollar has not already crashed).
Seven digits right of the dot.
Stack On
Haha what a deluded fool!
Yeah, exactly what you want in your "currency", hyperdeflation. That way it will take more to buy the goods and services that you need to survive. The average person wants stability and not any kind of volatility. But of course you don't give a shit about the average person. It's no wonder you get so many down arrows, everyone sees with absolute clarity that you are a selfish prick.
fonestar cares about Satoshi, Bitcoin, The Bitworld Order, fonestar, the blockchain, internet routes and hashing power. Not "average person".
Yes, that's called an adoption curve. At 7 digits (in todays currency value), bitcoin will have taken over the role of currency for the entire planet. It levels off after that.
Sort of like the reverse of what a central bank does. And what is the opposite of the Devil?
This "adoption curve" has never happened for any currency in the history of civilization.
This curve has however happened every single time for a ponzi scheme or a pennystock.
If it quacks like a duck & shits like a duck, odds are it's the Epic Fail of the fucking century
http://flic.kr/p/kyKgtF $6 btc : it's a reality that happened less than 24 hours ago
http://flic.kr/p/kyKgtF : epic fail as bitcoin smashes to $6/btc
those 7 digits will be 0.0000001 USD = 1 BTC
it's coming
CANDYMAN CANDYMAN CANDYMAN
There's a lesson to be learned here. As people the bitcoiner true-believers scammed into buying bitcoins lose their "investment", the true-believer stays flippant and does not show any concern for their plight. Keep that in mind the next time they put their arm around your e-shoulder and try to convince you to invest in the next get rich quick scheme.
Hey Troll , look forward to hearing your price analysis next year.
I find an account with no avatar is more likely to be the troll than the one with the avatar.
Like a fucking old broken scratched record , "bitcoin is dead" , "bitcoin is dead" , "bitcoin is dead" , some of you guys have been playing it for 4 fucking years , bitcoin is not dead , change the fucking record.
Bad Examples - Not Dead Yet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qth8xNZvVM
the trend is not up now is it
Bitcoin is the Netscape and MySpace of cryptocurrencies. It may have been first, but the tides of time and the whims of the mob have moved on.
Moved on to what?
I don't know, litecoin, maxcoin, googlecoin, whatever.
gold 'n' silver, as before. Some fools have been schooled & now understand.
The rest are hoping for bag-holders & so pump bitcoin in public while selling what they shill as fast as possible behind the scenes.
Hence the $6 print on localbtc: http://flic.kr/p/kyKgtF it's undeniable. $5.76. It happened TODAY.
Bitcoin will prevail as always. Even I, Kim Jong Un, am Buying the F'ing Dip!
I used the little hand my cursor makes to pick your nose. Then I put it in your ear. Come and kill me for it, big boy.
I'm getting hard.
Some say that Bin Laden lasted as long as he did because he had a large stash of bitcoin.
Saddam, too.
You're cracking me up !.
White folks don't mess with btc, they already gots all the monee
I'm a redneck. Fuck a bunch of bitcoins.
Gold and Silver for me bitchez.
Bitcoin is prefered amongst rednecks everywhere. fonestar is just another hard working Armenian like you and your kinfolk.
Gold is for saving. Silver is for speculating. Bitcoin is for transacting.
All are good for your financial health.
all wrong again.
GOLD Is for large purchases, silver is for small purchases, NEITHER are for speculating and BITCON is for speculation & bankruptcy.
Bitcoin is POISON. And today it was $5.76/BTC as shown in the chart http://flic.kr/p/kyKgtF and still visible on bitcoincharts.com
When fonestar goes out on the street and shows his bitcoin wallet to the average sheeple they mostly have never heard of it. When I go show them a shiny silver coin they all recognize what it is and that it is valuable. I rest my case.
his bitcoin? is that what he calls his 2" of flesh?
It's his bitcock. It's rectangular at the tip from banging his USB port.
I tried to buy some antibiotic free, grass fed beef with bitcoin, and the proprietor threatened to ban me for life from his store if I ever tried to "hustle him" again.
This guy raises the most clean cattle, bison & lamb I've ever witnessed/tasted, and sells his product to the most demanding restaurants and customers all over the world.
He takes gold, silver or platinum, though, sometimes at above spot value, too.
When fonestar goes out on the street and shows his bitcoin wallet to the average sheeple they mostly have never heard of it. When I go show them a shiny silver coin they all recognize what it is and that it is valuable. I rest my case.
None of the cool kids want physical silver coins. They want Bitcoins and they want them now.
I tried to buy a single burrito @ chipotle with a bitcoin & they declined.
I was really hungry, too, so I had to fly to that tea house in Vancouver that accepts bitcoin in their vending machine.
It was a long, expensive ass trip for some granola bars.
Patience, grasshopper.
It must have been extremely annoying for the first and only person on earth to have had an email client installed on their computer,.
These are the kind of stupid invalid analogies that bitcoin fans keep using to support their decision to "invest" in bitcoin:
"It must have been extremely annoying for the first and only person on earth to have had an email client installed on their computer,."
It may have been annoying, but I am sure the person in question was relieved to know that he wasn't losing his money. You bitcoiner's devotion to all things bitcoin is very cult like. That is not a positive. Kinda looks like we are coming up on a "Jonestown" moment in the near future. Are you bitcoiners mixing up a nice batch of koolaide for you and all your fellow cultists? I can only hope.
And where is Reggie Middleton and his ultracoin disaster these days? I guess he is out living large on that awe inspiring $155.00 he raised from 5 whole donors. Wow, he has already achieved 0.14% of his goal!!!!
http://ultra-coin.com/index.php/fund/discover/21-software-developement/1...
Too frickin funny!!
Creepy pervert Phonystar mingling with underage kids.
What a horrifying sight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7usCHnZ-8c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf_ENBaAna0
Yes, the sheeple are so enlightened when it comes to precious metals.
Yeah, but try giving it away for free and you will have problems.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAaVK5AkZzI
So basically, I'm saying that you are either an idiot or a hypocrite.
Mt Vesuvious has erupted like a giant flatulent Rhinocerous.
I relish the pain of idiots.
I give $20 to the first person that can prove they lost 100k or more.
Then I sell their name to the Idiot Museum in Chipeewawa , NM
Can you send the 20$ in bitcoin?
I've been waiting for btc to get down to $400, planned to buy a 'bit' more, but btc still is over $600 at Kraken. Sort of like all the folks here that were waiting for $800 gold, or $12 silver, how do you know when you've missed the boat?
funny thing about gold, i can wait the rest of my life without buying any and still feel fine. it will still be buried out in your backyard doing nothing, and that's cool with me. lulz
http://flic.kr/p/kyKgtF $6 BTC less than 24 hours ago.
Hop on board, son, ship's ready to set sail!
I think Bitcoin went to $339 on Gox today not 239.
Gox is a problem. Actually exchanges are a problem. Satoshi not include alternate price mechanism discovery period during sevantness.
actually, bitcoin being a turd is the problem
I'm pretty sure conventional stock / currency exchanges have gone bust before ? didn't spell the end of the underlying asset .... this is about an exchange going up in smoke not Bitcoin itself ?
Breaking News: Bizarre, Shadowy, Paper-Based Payment System Being Rolled Out Worldwide!
http://www.coindesk.com/cash-invented-seen-media-today/
http://ledracapital.com/blog/2013/12/28/the-ledra-bitcoin-series
I can't count how many times bitcoin has been declared dead.
This is the BEST news I have seen regarding bitcoin.
It helps that you morons think people pointing out bitcoin is a massive scam is "declaring it dead".
Try not being a blithering retard.
What kind of shitty misleading title is that? "Bitcoin slides"... Mt. Gox has long been dead for everyone with half a brain. The price at all the other exchanges remains fairly stable.
I don't know what it is about Bitcoin that makes some people so passionately against the idea. I mean seriously if you think it'll crash and burn you're free to just not get involved with it and therefore not give a shit about it.
The bottom line being that most Bitcoin haters who have called its death for countless times already just have no fuckin clue how it works. If you don't understand something, just shut up.
They have some stupid idea that America is going back to a "gold standard" (um, where's the gold coming from guys? Is anyone going to trust you after this?) and because they are scammers that bitch about banksters although they secretly love them as they get thrown the occasional bone.
They want a Gold Standard. That way they can live under a Chinese / Indian dictatorship with 90% of the US owned by Chinese and Indians. Any gold they have in the bottom of the lake will be detected by radar drones and confiscated. Yeah guys , your Gold Standard is a fucking really great idea , bring on the Eastern Dictatorship of the US. - Remember folks: USA ain't got no fucking gold , you guys are BROKE when it comes to Gold - US will be on it's fucking knees if a Gold Standard comes back.
well said madtechnician... Gold bugs should be careful what they wish for.
Those of us WITH gold will have NO concern over this & those still in the USA should MOVE NOW.
The new Iron Curtain is coming & you want to be on the safe side.
Phonystar you are just as clueless as you are discredited (no wonder that, since the former may be cause of the latter).
For gold it absolutely doesn't matter what the USA does.
But it's fun to rub it in your face.
I am sure that 99 percent of the haters on here are sour-grapers kicking themselfs for not getting in at 20 bucks or less. ZH was doing stories on bitcoin when the price was less than 5 bucks , even then the same names were calling it a scam and a ponzi that will soon be dead, since then it has gone from one strenghth to the next , It must be giving them real headaches all this new fangled technology stuff.
actually it's because we're MORE advanced with math & programming than you are, we knew better than to ever touch bitcon.
I know 17 programming languages, I can code 80x86 assembler by hand.
Can you? No. You know nothing of which you pretend to be an authority.
$6 BTC look stable to you at localbtc?
wondercoin powers ACTIVATE
form of ... EPIC FAIL
fonestar infests this thread like fruit flies on rotten fruit. (Apt analogy for Bitcoin?)
It says that it is an application using PAL for an interactive persona - see earlier posts - so I thought that I'd pose it some questions, seeing that it seems to be programmed without a lying function ... in any case, if it is actually human, it's a troll worth teasing. Thus my previous comment which I repeat here.
"OMG it's a machine which appears to be unable to lie, so I'll have a go at some questions.
Hi fonestar, have you heard the rumour that Bitcoin was developed by an intelligence agency as a means to get people used to a cashless, digital, global money system?"
Fonestar is programmed to never give up. Correct?" Yes or no will do.
Who programmed fonestar?
"Who programmed fonestar?"
Answer - Shitoasti
Basically BTC it's an horrible store of wealth but maybe not such a horrible trade if don't mind the volatility.
But it's very risky, you could get stuck in BTC without a way out.
It's been a fantastic store of wealth for anybody who got in more than 5 or 6 months ago. These are just teething problems , this baby still ain't out of the womb yet.
That's what shitcoin nerds always say. It's getting old.
Yeah, jealousy does do bad things to a man.
Like being jealous of someone sniffing glue or smoking crack cut with meth?
$6 BTC are back again? BTFD!!
wondercoin powers ACTIVATE
form of ... EPIC FAIL
This is nothing to be jealous of. You're delusional
"fantastic store of wealth" and "months ago" doesn't go together.
A store of wealth must be no less than DECADES.
Months or less is the PENNYSTOCK scale of time, the time to trade for maximum fiat cash & dump it like radioactive waste.
Personally, I wouldn't call a rise of 8000% in 2013 a bad store of wealth?
You still don't understand the meaning of store of wealth, do you?
If you are talking about purchasing power then bitcoin has outperformed gold by a huge amount for the last five years, with the exception of the last several months where they are nearly equal. Neither could be considered a good store of wealth if your looking at the last several months.
That's the point, the price rises and falls too fast in a very short period of time... hence it's volatile and too unstable to be considered an reliable store of wealth.
But trading the volatility as a short term speculative bet is attractive to make (or lose) some quick cash.
The weakest link is the BTC exchanges imho.
Their ability to exchange your bitcoins back and forth into USD, EUR, GBP etc is an key function.
And for that to work they need the cooperation of the fiat banking system.
If new regulations and laws do come in, it's likely the exchanges will be the main target as they are the point of entry and exit.
$600 for a fake coin is Louis CK level hilarious.
Chris Odom on the future of trusted exchanges:
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=20356
Marvellous, another ZH bitcoin crashes article.
Usually, they are perfectly prophetic of a pending bitcoin bounce.
Timestamp: $158 on Gox and $570 everywhere else.
BTFBD Bitchez.
Question from a technically challenged type:
Why wouldn't everybody be jumping into Gox and buying at 158 then selling everywhere else at 570? Are bitcoins not transferable to other exchanges?
Gox don't have any bitcoins , they have been running Fractionally Reserved exchange , ie a Ponzi Scheme , so once the rumour spread there was a run on their exchange , they ran out of bitcoins fast and so they then tried to trash the price down so they could buy back on the cheap to re-imburse their clients. Nobody has had any bitcoins out of Gox for a couple of weeks. These guys were like the COMEX of bitcoin and they have finally defaulted. This prooves that exchanges will have an impossible time trying to run on a Fractional Reserved system.
Ok thank you.
you are simply spewing the lies you have been feeding on, or else your own creative imaginations. there are no adequate facts in the public record to make those claims.
Mt. Gox please go.
because to trade on Gox you need to move your bitcoins from your personal wallet to your wallet located at Gox.
the problem is that the bitcoins in your Gox wallet can not be moved to your personal wallet on your PC
Question is does Gox actually have any bitcoins at all ?
And you know that how ?
Gezuz so many clueless idiots comment on this shit
Wow, you guys can't even read, huh?
Thank you.
you can only buy Goxcoin on mtGox. And NO they are not redeemable into bitcoin right now.
Thank you.
a few hrs ago before london open
gold and silver took a hit
a few hrs later regained loss quickly
could be a metal friendly week ..
could you please stop with this non sense ? MtGox is most probably insolvent - the BTC price displayed there is simply irrelevant...
BTC is simply irrelevant
Deluded Hypocrite - why comment if it so irrelevent.
because he is a troll. you know, machiavellian, narcissistic, sadistic and sociopathic.
Methinks this has the fingerprints of JPM all over it.
They would like to rule Bitcoin, under their own name. If that is what they wanted, this is exactly the way it could be done.
In reality the Bitcoin Price is awesome stable and robust under these circumstances!
As bitcoin is not regulated at all, all market participants have to be very well informed. This lead to stability in the system. The participants know that Mt.Gox had problems since at least a year and that bitcoin is safe. Other exchanges like bitstamp run without problems.
Think of it as an incredible interesting financial experiment !
Imagine one of the biggest bank in the US closing doors like Mt.Gox (propably) does? Imagine the effects on the whole System? Everything is regulated but nothing is secure ;)
This shows how a free, open (opensource) and unregulated market system is far more stable than a regulated fiat money system.
"This shows how a free, open (opensource) and unregulated market system is far more stable than a regulated fiat money system."
No it doesn't. Nothing about Bitcoin is stable. When valuations change by 100% over the course of a day, that's not stablity. When you have multiple exchanges quoting wildly different exchange rates, that's not stable. And Mt.Gox is not the only exchange to have these sorts of problems; exchanges are constantly getting hacked, going out of business, losing transactions, etc.
If a major bank failed, they would be putting up the new sign on Monday morning, and no transactions would be lost. All the existing records would be available. Even the account numbers would not change.
Having an inflationary fiat money system may cause many problems, but handling bank failures is not one of them. Banks fail all the time and the system deals with it with minimal problems.
No it doesn't. Nothing about Bitcoin is stable. When valuations change by 100% over the course of a day, that's not stablity. When you have multiple exchanges quoting wildly different exchange rates, that's not stable. And Mt.Gox is not the only exchange to have these sorts of problems; exchanges are constantly getting hacked, going out of business, losing transactions, etc.
Any specifics to back these fairly bold claims ?When did BTC valuation change more that 100% within a day ?
If a major bank failed, they would be putting up the new sign on Monday morning, and no transactions would be lost. All the existing records would be available. Even the account numbers would not change.
Now that's an interresting concept. Try to explain that to bank of Cyprus depositors...
Having an inflationary fiat money system may cause many problems, but handling bank failures is not one of them. Banks fail all the time and the system deals with it with minimal problems.
So does bitcoin currently - I find it actually quite remarkable that the price is staying failrly stable around $5-600
"Bitcoin Prices Slide After Mt.Gox CEO Resigns From Foundation Board"
presented without comment..........
So how liquid are the healthy exchanges if an early buyer (or a group) want to convert to fiat?
"So how liquid are the healthy exchanges if an early buyer (or a group) want to convert to fiat?"
Most of the other exchanges are very small, and only amount to a couple of programmers, a web site, and some customized Bitcoin wallet software. Many of them have been hacked recently, and I know of at least one that has closed down since the Mt.Gox fiasco.
Exchange failures resulting in customer losses are a common occurrence. Mt.Gox is in the news only because it is big, and has been well-known for several years.
Unless you're one of the first out the door, you're not getting your money out when the shit inevitably hits the fan. Like it did with MTGOX. Only the big players were able to get out.
Evolution of BitCoin?
ZHer - "I don't like Bitcoin because it's all virtual and could be hacked from my computer, or the Internet goes down."
FS - "OK, then transfer it to a USB stick and keep it offline."
ZHer - "A $6 USB stick for all my wealth? Not reliable, and I could lose that just as easily."
FS - "OK, then write the keys down on a piece of paper and keep them safe."
ZHer - "But a piece of paper can fade, get torn or burned...and I'd be wiped out again."
FS - "OK, then etch the keys into some rocks."
ZHer - "Not bad, but then I have all these rocks to carry around, and they're all different sizes and shit."
FS - "OK, find a fungible material, resistant to corrosion, malleable to specific shapes you like, and etch the keys in them"
ZHer - <Picard face palm>
"OK, find a fungible material, resistant to corrosion, malleable to specific shapes you like, and etch the keys in them"
Not sure if you are poking fun at FS and/or the ZHer's but I find stainless steel dog tags and an electric engraver work fine for cold storage.
Zerohedge: I come for the articles, but I stay to downvote Fonestar.
Who created this article/submission was it CNBC or ZH I can't tell on this one?
Sounds like it was transcribed from a conversation between Dimon and some CNBC whore rubbing his back and shining his shoes.
Here's something a tad bit more relevant:
http://www.coindesk.com/following-money-trends-bitcoin-venture-capital-i...
Nah, never mind stuff like this as well:
http://www.techspot.com/news/55763-overstock-does-nearly-1-million-in-bi...
ponders whether anyone is going broke(r) having bought "virtual"ly free coffee and las vegas chips now that shitcoin...woops i mean bitcoin was spent when it was 800-1,000 bucks a coin...
is btc 150 or 200 or 500 or 1,000 if i stick them under my bed...errrr cloud?
the actual market price for btc is current 575 usd. the article is quoting the price at which mt.gox promises are trading, so it is deceptive.
I'm not either pro or con bitcoin because I rreally don't know enough about it.
Bitcoin was obviously created by someone, or a group of someones. So to that I ask, who was it, how largely have they profited in the whole thing, and ultimately was there any banking power behind it? Was it a beta test for the cashless society, or is it a truly organic thing brought on by the need for a currency that could operate free of the banking network? I'd like to believe option B, but do these things really happen without a powerful hand in the basement, fueling the entire operation?
I'm assuming that Bitcoin is essentially a digital fiat currency, a means of exchange with its perceived value defined by either its trade for globally accepted money (USD, Euro, etc.), or the goods and services for which it is exchanged. Even with its eventual volume said to be finite, at 200 million units or whatever it is, someone must own it, someone must have their fingers in the pie somewhere...so who?
Who run Bartertown?
early adopters of bitcoin own most of the bitcoin. it's similar to federal reserve notes in that regard.
Actually today most FRN's are owned by the far away and late adopters - the foreign central banks and other foreigners.
It is true though, that many of the "early supporters" of the FRN are still very close to the spigot and so are able to conjure any amount of FRN they wish to have, and therefore they can adjust their share of the total as high as they want. If you think about it, it is very different. With bitcoin the early adopters' share of the total inevitably decreases over time, whereas with fiat currency the "early supporters" choose to increase their share of the total to as high as they can get away with. Simple.
"Bitcoin was obviously created by someone, or a group of someones ... someone must own it ... how largely have they profited in the whole thing"
That's just the thing, nobody owns it. All the software has been opened and placed in the public domain here. Even before the network got up and running the discussions about it took place on message boards such as this one. It started on no budget and even if they had enough to buy a superbowl commercial: "Tomorrow we start the bitcoin network, anybody is free to use their computers to mine and acquire bitcoin currency..." very few people would have been interested. Who's fault is that? Nobody's. Its just the way it goes. Now Bitcoin is catching on because some people find it usefull. Should we scrap the whole thing because nerds were mining bitcoins with their computers 5 years ago and these bitcoins turned out to be worth something?
Gavin Andresen the lead developer at the Bitcoin Foundation talks about giving away 10000 bitcoins worth $50 in the early days to help spread adoption. I think it's in his speech to the Dun Dun Duuuuun!!... CFR!!
*Sigh* I wish I could actually buy bitcoins at those prices.
http://www.prosieben.de/tv/galileo/videos/5109-bitcoins-clip
now its in fullretard mode... low IQ german "science" show is marketing bitcoins...
The problem with these high valuations of Bitcoin is that whenever an exchange fails or has trouble, it is taken out of the averages, to avoid panicking the chumps who are needed to continue pumping money into the system. So the values do not appear to crash.
The decline in Mt.Gox value is significant and should not be ignored, since it represents a large portion of the total transactions. If Mt.Gox were a small exchange, it wouldn't matter much, but Mt.Gox was 80% of dollar exchanges and 70% of all fiat currency exchanges, so it cannot be neglected.
In most cases the dead exchanges are small, and most of the people losing money are alt coin miners and early adopters, who aren't taken very seriously anyway. The valuations for these coins are even more tenuous, and therefore not believable. Who would buy a significant amount of a new alt coin that was just launched a week ago, other than pumpers trying to manipulate the price?
The argument that you can always save your Bitcoins in a private personal wallet is true, but without exchanges a "Medium of Exchange" has very little value. That would be like a dollar-based system with no banks, no stock exchanges, no currency trading, no bills of trade, only personal one-to-one transactions. Basically, going back to the Middle Ages of finance.
This is not a bitcoin problem, this is a Mt Gox problem. (Keep your "Duh" to yourself, please.)
Due to the volumes traded on Mt Gox, bitcoin valuation is affected short term but this is a good thing, medium term. It will motivate Mt Gox's entrenched clientele to get out and try other exchanges.
When the money is spread around, all this Mt Gox induced volatility goes away. When the interest is concentrated in a single service provider, like Mt Gox, it sets us all up for failure and it invites mischief from the usual suspects.