21–30 of 112 posts
This is strange. There's still nothing about this on their web site. It's very suspicious when a Bitcoin exchange claims problems on the deposit side and stops processing withdrawals . Nobody trusts a Bitcoin exchange in trouble, with good reason given the history. On the other hand, it's 6:30 AM in London, where Bitstamp is, and their staff is probably not in yet. Bitstamp is still processing trades; they haven't sh…
This is strange. There's still nothing about this on their web site. It's very suspicious when a Bitcoin exchange claims problems on the deposit side and stops processing withdrawals . Nobody trusts a Bitcoin exchange in trouble, with good reason given the history. On the other hand, it's 6:30 AM in London, where Bitstamp is, and their staff is probably not in yet. Bitstamp is still processing trades; they haven't sh…
> This is strange. It is indeed strange...and strangely familiar. Every Bitcoin company that has had massive holes in its books has first claimed that technical difficulties were the reason they had to suspend withdrawals. Then over the following weeks comes the annoucement that the money has been stolen, lost, or law enforcement moves in and says it has been embezzled. I would be extremely uncomfortable at the momen…
This is probably what a lot of people will try to do, which will lead to further drops in price.
I wouldn't be surprised to see prices break the 1y low at this point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you appear to be struggling with the basic concept of bitcoin, here's the first phrase from Bitcoin.org for you: Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks
The point is that most people are never going to adopt Bitcoin if they have to worry about the technical side of securing their own funds. And given that there are many examples of incompetence and/or fraud within exchanges and other nascent businesses that intend to handle elements of that security on behalf of customers, and no enforced regulations such as you find in the traditional banking sector, you can imagine…
And most people are never going to buy physical gold because they have to worry about the technical side of securing their own funds.
Know what? Bitcoin/Gold is not for these people respectively, and nobody ever claimed otherwise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you appear to be struggling with the basic concept of bitcoin, here's the first phrase from Bitcoin.org for you: Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks
The point is that most people are never going to adopt Bitcoin if they have to worry about the technical side of securing their own funds. And given that there are many examples of incompetence and/or fraud within exchanges and other nascent businesses that intend to handle elements of that security on behalf of customers, and no enforced regulations such as you find in the traditional banking sector, you can imagine…
It would have been true, too, if gold bars were what we were talking about when we talked about cash. BTC needs the convenience equivalent of keeping greenbacks in a wallet in your pocket. Probably a mobile app with a good UX would do it, maybe one built into the OS at a low level ala Apple Pay.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you appear to be struggling with the basic concept of bitcoin, here's the first phrase from Bitcoin.org for you: Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks
Most Bitcoin users struggle with the basic concept of Bitcoin then. While you can "be your own bank", most coins (no reference, just surmising) are in exchanges rather than wallets owned by the end user. So despite the marketing copy, there's a ton of Bitcoin stored in what are essentially "banks".
Wrong.
And this is why these Bitcoin debates are so annoying and repetitive.
For some reason everyone feels entitled to their little doomsday speech without bothering to research even their most basic premises.
This is strange. There's still nothing about this on their web site. It's very suspicious when a Bitcoin exchange claims problems on the deposit side and stops processing withdrawals . Nobody trusts a Bitcoin exchange in trouble, with good reason given the history. On the other hand, it's 6:30 AM in London, where Bitstamp is, and their staff is probably not in yet. Bitstamp is still processing trades; they haven't sh…
> This is strange. It is indeed strange...and strangely familiar. Every Bitcoin company that has had massive holes in its books has first claimed that technical difficulties were the reason they had to suspend withdrawals. Then over the following weeks comes the annoucement that the money has been stolen, lost, or law enforcement moves in and says it has been embezzled. I would be extremely uncomfortable at the momen…
There's a report on Reddit that withdrawals stopped 16 hours ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2rayix/bitstamp_bit...
Yet no official comments from Bitstamp. Just a strange email, possibly forged. That's a very bad sign.
"It is indeed strange...and strangely familiar."
Right. This is a pattern we've seen so many times before in the Bitcoin world.
"If withdrawal capability does come back online, try to get your money out ASAP."
Yes. Definitely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most Bitcoin users struggle with the basic concept of Bitcoin then. While you can "be your own bank", most coins (no reference, just surmising) are in exchanges rather than wallets owned by the end user. So despite the marketing copy, there's a ton of Bitcoin stored in what are essentially "banks".
most coins (no reference, just surmising) are in exchanges rather than wallets owned by the end user. Wrong. And this is why these Bitcoin debates are so annoying and repetitive. For some reason everyone feels entitled to their little doomsday speech without bothering to research even their most basic premises.
edit: Did you totally change your reply? From the time I started my comment to hitting submit, your comment completely changed.
But to your point, you're presuming I have no clue, that I own no Bitcoin, that I'm not a regular participant in communities like Bitcointalk and /r/bitcoin. You believe there's a world where everyone has paper wallets and Trezors and ASICs. No: the early adopters are becoming a smaller percentage of the Bitcoin world. People are buying via Coinbase and Circle, and if they're really advanced, they sweep to a hosted wallet on Blockchain. Even many miners aren't immediately sweeping their coins, instead, leaving them on the pools. Do you really think it's going the opposite direction, towards less centralization?
This is strange. There's still nothing about this on their web site. It's very suspicious when a Bitcoin exchange claims problems on the deposit side and stops processing withdrawals . Nobody trusts a Bitcoin exchange in trouble, with good reason given the history. On the other hand, it's 6:30 AM in London, where Bitstamp is, and their staff is probably not in yet. Bitstamp is still processing trades; they haven't sh…
Not exclusively. Coinbase also sells (and buys) bitcoins directly to consumers. In fact, Coinbase is probably the biggest seller of bitcoins in the US (or second biggest after Circle.com - none of these companies publish volume numbers due to competitive reasons).
"Something is going on."
What is going on is very simple: customers of Bitstamp see that bitcoin withdrawals are halted. So the only way to get money out of the exchange is to sell coins and withdraw fiat. This selling activity is what is causing the price to crash. This always happens whenever an exchange halts bitcoin withdrawals (eg. see MtGox's demise in early 2014).
Edit: @TylerE: some customers usually learn about news before others: friends of employees, or even simply the first affected customers (before a public statement is made... remember: rumors spread fast). Again, the same scenario happened with MtGox: the exchange rate started crashing on MtGox a few days before the public news of their insolvency came out. I have been trading BTC for 4 years. I have seen how most of these scenarios play out in the Bitcoin world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is strange. It is indeed strange...and strangely familiar. Every Bitcoin company that has had massive holes in its books has first claimed that technical difficulties were the reason they had to suspend withdrawals. Then over the following weeks comes the annoucement that the money has been stolen, lost, or law enforcement moves in and says it has been embezzled. I would be extremely uncomfortable at the momen…
Bitstamp has a blog, a web site, a Facebook page, and a Twitter feed. None of these have any mention of problems. There's a report on Reddit that withdrawals stopped 16 hours ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2rayix/bitstamp_bit... Yet no official comments from Bitstamp. Just a strange email, possibly forged. That's a very bad sign. "It is indeed strange...and strangely familiar." Right. This is a pattern…
This is strange. There's still nothing about this on their web site. It's very suspicious when a Bitcoin exchange claims problems on the deposit side and stops processing withdrawals . Nobody trusts a Bitcoin exchange in trouble, with good reason given the history. On the other hand, it's 6:30 AM in London, where Bitstamp is, and their staff is probably not in yet. Bitstamp is still processing trades; they haven't sh…