Bitcoin falls from $266 • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#141

Post by pseudonym » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 7:56 PM UTC

ashray wrote: post #91

gruseom wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A genuine crash in which everyone was trying to sell at once might look like a DDoS. How do you know this is not that? (No opinion, just curious.)

All bitcoin sites, whether they are forums or exchanges went down. It was a widespread DDOS on pretty much anything bitcoin related. For example: bitcointalk.org was also down.

I'm going to vote on the side of "people hitting bitcoin related sites to figure out why the price is dropping so fast", as opposed to an "actual" DDOS.

The result, however, amounts to the same thing.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#142

Post by imsofuture » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 7:56 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #133

wting wrote: post #17

I'm interested in the price of Bitcoin, but we don't need these daily submissions. If you're interested in following the price, I suggest these links: - https://bitcoinity.org/markets - http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD - http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ If you're interested in talking about the price, try #bitcoin-pricetalk on Freenode.

This is HUGE news on Bitcoin - nothing like this has ever happened in it's history. Market went from $250 to $110 in 5 hours. MtGox was down for 30 minutes today. Trading lag was 600 seconds for orders placed at market prices. April 10th, 2013 may be the day that will be remember for the next 20 years as the day that Bitcoin crashed and either (A) never recovered or (B) kept progressing after an incredible Blip. Defi…

It's hard to treat this re-pricing as a huge crash given that it was preceded by an equally unprecedented boom.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#143

Post by clarkmoody » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 7:56 PM UTC

codexon wrote: post #121

Someone supposedly sold $10+ million worth of bitcoins. http://blockchain.info/address/1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG...

That's probably a transaction resulting from MtGox's shuffling coins around.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#144

Post by mattmaroon » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 7:57 PM UTC

At this point I'm just flagging bitcoin price updates. We don't need these here.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#145

Post by kale » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 7:58 PM UTC

NathanKP wrote: post #124

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do the numbers in the background mean? I've seen everything from $0.01 to $8000+ in about 30 seconds. EDIT: Realtime transactions? Impressive range if they are.

Yeah the biggest I've seen so far was $94,000.00 It doesn't specify whether that was a sell or a buy though. Either way someone made or lost a lot of money.

It's both. One person sells and another buys.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#146

Post by eksith » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 7:59 PM UTC

BTC crashed primarily because the market suddenly got flooded by Bitcoinbillionaire :

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/04/bitcoin-crashes-losi...

This bares repeating...

The value of BTC is in the nature of the transaction; not the currency itself. People have turned BTC into a commodity instead of actually bloody spending it. Their old fashioned thinking still ties it to traditional fiat like a smoker trying to give up the habit.

Look, I don't want anyone to lose their money, but people have to stop thinking of BTC as something that has value. What's valuable is the transaction itself, not the means of transaction. To put it another way, fiat currency is just colorful paper until it gets distributed to banks and into your hands.

This original transaction and all future transactions give it value; without it, the paper means nothing.

Edit: Spelling. Ironically, I wrote "bears repeating" instead "bares repeating". BTC ain't a bear market ;)

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#147

Post by andrewljohnson » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 7:59 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #83

aero142 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what do you think the intrinsic or non-monetary price of gold is?

Gold is useful stuff in all sorts of electronic applications... I'd say at least 4x that of Bismuth or around $50/pound.

That's ridiculous. Gold is far more valuable as a mammalian decoration than as a conductor.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#148

Post by yxhuvud » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

anonymoushn wrote: post #84

safwanc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..and 5 minutes later, its back up to $190 USD/BTC.

It's not a matter of being up $40 in 5 minutes. The spread is actually $40. Edit: Erm, the above was true a while ago. More recently there were standing orders on both sides around $190, but only 20 btc of liquidity on the bid side between $190 and $150. Edit more: Seeing this again, $44 spread from $106 to $150.

Probably a result of the lag of the trading engine. Neither side of the transactions have up to date information and if there is more selling than buying in such a situation then the spread will be great.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#149

Post by ISL » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

binaryorganic wrote: post #104

motti_s wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that HN has a built-in mechanism for determining what's interesting to its users. If a Bitcoin related story gets voted up to appear in the top page every day, then maybe it should be there.

This. There's been so much talk about curation/deletion of posts lately. Letting the algorithm do it's job is the only way to determine what's HN worthy in my view.

Mostly agreed.

There is value in curating HN. People come to HN because it has a reasonably high signal to noise ratio in a certain realm. Highly charged topics tend to drive upvotes, even if it's just a 'like' or a, 'yeah, that's important, I'll up-vote it'. I didn't really start visiting HN for politics or shocking stories; those tend to disproportionately draw upvotes. I'm not in favor of downmodding non-tech articles, but there's something to be said for those who do.

There are more important things in the world than Bitcoin, but I'm happy to see a bitcoin article, perhaps two, on the front page anytime something interesting is happening.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#150

Post by mattmaroon » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

motti_s wrote: post #95

wting wrote: post #17

I'm interested in the price of Bitcoin, but we don't need these daily submissions. If you're interested in following the price, I suggest these links: - https://bitcoinity.org/markets - http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD - http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ If you're interested in talking about the price, try #bitcoin-pricetalk on Freenode.

I'd argue that HN has a built-in mechanism for determining what's interesting to its users. If a Bitcoin related story gets voted up to appear in the top page every day, then maybe it should be there.

No, there aren't downvotes. If 20% of users really love something, and 80% hate it (assuming they only use flagging for spam) it will still keep making the top page.