500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#1

Post by eis » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:36 PM UTC

500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash
bitcoincharts.com

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#2

Post by citricsquid » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

So for someone who doesn't understand economics that much, what does this mean? Have bitcoins finally failed?

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#3

Post by crayz » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

That's about 7% of the total number of bitcoins in circulation. Anyone have details on how this happened?

http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#4

Post by Osiris » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

mtgox.com is offline. Did they shut trading down?

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#5

Post by enki » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:50 PM UTC

crayz wrote: post #3

That's about 7% of the total number of bitcoins in circulation. Anyone have details on how this happened? http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc

according to the guy running the exchange: user with 500k bitcoins was hacked (probably password bruteforce or csrf).

they'll probably reverse all transactions since then

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#6

Post by eis » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

A little bit explanation:

Mt.Gox is the biggest bitcoin market place by far. During the last 1h the whole volume of about 500k BTC was traded making the price drop from somewhere around $17 to virtually nothing.

Details are not available yet. It could have been a bug or an intrudor.

Rumors have it that someone with a huge wallet got hacked.

someone with lots of coins did get hacked

MagicalTux is working on Mt.Gox

Also some other markets like btcex or tradehill are seeing problems and/or price drops.

Update: Mt.Gox have published an announcement:

https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell...

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#7

Post by lordgilman » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #2

So for someone who doesn't understand economics that much, what does this mean? Have bitcoins finally failed?

Someone just went to sell a ton of bitcoins at once. Because the market's so small they were able to fill all the buy orders placed all the way down to 1 cent per bitcoin. Some people with long-shot bets made quite a bit of money. About half of the 500k filled the buy orders on the way down and half of them were sold at the 1 cent price.

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#8

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #2

So for someone who doesn't understand economics that much, what does this mean? Have bitcoins finally failed?

[deleted]

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#9

Post by skrebbel » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:53 PM UTC

i must admit i'm somewhat impressed how fast the hackers and cheaters managed to take over bitcoin trading.

i think it's kind of cute. people hoped for an economy no government could control, and got exactly that: anarchy and a burning world.

Re: 500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash

#10

Post by joezydeco » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 6:53 PM UTC

lordgilman wrote: post #7

citricsquid wrote: post #2

So for someone who doesn't understand economics that much, what does this mean? Have bitcoins finally failed?

Someone just went to sell a ton of bitcoins at once. Because the market's so small they were able to fill all the buy orders placed all the way down to 1 cent per bitcoin. Some people with long-shot bets made quite a bit of money. About half of the 500k filled the buy orders on the way down and half of them were sold at the 1 cent price.

Which kind of implies someone was doing this with stolen coins, right? You don't sell so cheap if you have USD 8,500,000 on paper and want to get as much possible out of the sale.