There are plenty of talented people who believe in BTC enough that they would work to get in on the ground floor of an exchange. Who do you think are designing custom ASICs for mining?
As far as I know, the guys making custom ASICs for mining are selling them to miners for real dollars. I don't think that helps your point much.
Why do you think that?
The top sellers of mining hardware that I could find on Google (Butterfly Labs, Advanced Miners, Cointerra) all accept Bitcoin for payment.
Are you referring to some group upstream of the hardware sellers? I'm curious where you're getting this information from...
Why would the price drop when there are other exchanges open?
MtGox is one of the biggest and most well known. As I understand each exchange basically sets there own price - but if one exchange lowers there buy price (they buy bitcoins for less dollars) then the others can do too? This is great for MtGox, all buy transactions pending just lost a $100 of the cost to fulfil. Surely then they wait for the bottom, initiate all transactions possible. Price rises and they can take in…
After some research (aka googling) I discover the price is not sinking because of mtgox.
Consider this a reminder that while Bitcoin may be an interesting technological achievement, as a tradable asset it is still basically a toy. Crappy exchange technology combined with low liquidity is a perfect recipe for this kind of volatility.
The interesting thing about bitcoin is that you can just trade your friends for some p2p, you don't need a central exchange. You don't need a bank account to send someone bitcoins or to get some. You can just hand someone $20 and your address and they can send it to you p2p. No banking infrastructure involved. That boggles the mind. It is impossible for bitcoin to become fully illiquid as long as people believe it ha…
Funny enough, I can just give my friends cash and it works pretty well too.
Interesting comment on Reddit: "I had a job interview with MtGox a couple of weeks ago for a frontend developer position. After talking about their technical environment I declined the position. Contemplated publicizing my story, but I have zero proof that the interview took place. But fuck me is their environment fucked up. Either way, I have been recommending to my friends to move any BTC away from Gox as soon as p…
I believe it. I've talked to a backend developer at Coinbase, he said their codebase is a mess and that he wouldn't hold any in their system. Also I submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7169114 a couple of days ago based on what I found on Reddit. And this is Coinbase, the good guy. MtGox has always been a clusterfuck. This feels like the internet used to feel like. Back when you just used to assume that a…
Up until a few days ago, I had been too lazy to go through the trouble required to ensure that I trusted my ability to administer and recover my own personal Bitcoin wallet, instead deferring the responsibility to the online service that I stored them with. Though I realize the flaws in this method, I just didn't feel up to it. With all of this news about MtGox, I've accelerated my transitioning process.
Consider this a reminder that while Bitcoin may be an interesting technological achievement, as a tradable asset it is still basically a toy. Crappy exchange technology combined with low liquidity is a perfect recipe for this kind of volatility.
This is more about a crappy exchange that has been crappy for most of its existence than about Bitcoin itself. The sky is not falling. MtGox may fall after this, but IMO that would be a good thing.
No, this is more about the freedom (and naivety) of the Bitcoin community. When you don't have any type of regulation or oversight in place, you get this type of free market free for all. There is no one single authority out there that can force Mt.Gox to clean ups it act. The only people with any power over the exchanges are their customers. But the customers aren't pushing for change for a variety of reasons. They either lack knowledge of these issues, knowledge about how these technical issues can cause problems, or have a vested enough interest in Bitcoin to overlook (or even down play) these issues.
So, is this really a technological issue or a liquidity crisis at Mt. Gox?
It seems a technical issue, they are saying they won't process BTC transactions not that they wont process fiat withdrawals, although those have been slow for months anyway.
As far as I know, the guys making custom ASICs for mining are selling them to miners for real dollars. I don't think that helps your point much.
Why do you think that? The top sellers of mining hardware that I could find on Google (Butterfly Labs, Advanced Miners, Cointerra) all accept Bitcoin for payment. Are you referring to some group upstream of the hardware sellers? I'm curious where you're getting this information from...
Do they "accept bitcoin" in the way that many big services do, where they get their payment out of bitcoin and into cash as soon as possible?