Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 359 posts

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#221

Post by sireat »

jondubois wrote: post #120

For all the bad press that Bitfinex gets, they're the only exchange that I know which lets you sign up for an account and start depositing, trading and withdrawing cryptocurrencies in less than 10 minutes. At least when my money is on Bitfinex, I know that I can take it all out at any time... With that kind of liquidity, I wouldn't care if Bitfinex was owned and operated by a colony of wild monkeys. I don't care if t…

This is nice, but how quickly can you withdraw USD from Bitfinex?

You can get USDT out but what do you do with it if you want USD?

I mean, any half competent startup should be able to rig up a system allowing deposits and withdrawals of cryptocurrencies only AS LONG as no real world banks are involved.

The weak spot of all crypto exchanges has been banking regulations.

Disclaimer: I've never put any of miniscule BTC holdings on exchanges when I saw how shakey MTGox was looking.

The only quick and workable solution seems to be localbitcoins.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#222

Post by ThomPete »

This is off topic but since a lot of people seem to be experts I just wanted to ask.

Can someone explain this to me

http://000fff.org/uploads/bitcoinprice.png

The flat-lines. I have seen it several times. Is is because of lack of data of trading or lack of trading or what's making the price flatline like that?

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#223

Post by Nursie »

python-guy-vt wrote: post #150
querulous wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not how markets work. bitcoin has no intrinsic value, just a exchange rate with other things

that is exactly how markets work. > bitcoin has no intrinsic value, just a exchange rate with other things 1. It has proof-of-work, which gives it value 2. Supply of the coin and demand for the coins determine the price. The only thing that can vary widely is the demand, the supply cannot be fucked with (unlike fiat currency). It is impossible for whole bunch of new coins to suddenly appear out of thin air. There is…

Proof of work doesn't give it value. That value (energy) is lost to heat, and the amount put in tends to rise with the market value.

The value dictates the amount of PoW needed, not the other way round.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#225

Post by RexetBlell »

ThomPete wrote: post #222

This is off topic but since a lot of people seem to be experts I just wanted to ask. Can someone explain this to me http://000fff.org/uploads/bitcoinprice.png The flat-lines. I have seen it several times. Is is because of lack of data of trading or lack of trading or what's making the price flatline like that?

It's definitely not the lack of trading that's causing this. It's funny that you would even think that haha.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#226

Post by Nursie »

s17n wrote: post #113
wpietri wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the other parallels that interests me is that there's very little incentive to be publicly skeptical of the nonsense. People were immensely critical of Warren Buffett during the dot-com bubble. He was frank that their valuations didn't make sense to him, and he took a pasting for it. He turned out to be right, but only after taking a lot of heat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1217716.stm There's little g…

Calling bitcoin a bubble seems like the wrong word. There are basically two possible outcomes: total market cap zero, or in the trillions. How much you think bitcoin is worth depends on your guess (and it really is just a guess, nobody has any idea what is going to happen) about the relative likelihood of each.

Surely option 3 is "it finds a niche and hits some sort of equilibrium" ?

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#227

Post by jonknee »

adameast9000 wrote: post #182
treis wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying you can't lend out a dollar bill you don't have. It's strictly true, but doesn't accurately represent how the banking system work. The $1,000 dollars in my Charles Schwab account don't correspond to 1,000 physical dollar bills somewhere. They are simply a number in a database somewhere. When I go and withdraw that money, I get back a random selection of $1 bills that other people have deposited. A…

Unfortunately fractional reserve isn't safe for a currency that is this volatile. Depending on what the "fraction" is, some major withdrawal demand against one of these exchanges would topple it

Yes, that is precisely what the problem is. There will one day be a run on the exchanges and it will get nasty very quickly.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#228

Post by ThomPete »

RexetBlell wrote: post #225
ThomPete wrote: post #222

This is off topic but since a lot of people seem to be experts I just wanted to ask. Can someone explain this to me http://000fff.org/uploads/bitcoinprice.png The flat-lines. I have seen it several times. Is is because of lack of data of trading or lack of trading or what's making the price flatline like that?

It's definitely not the lack of trading that's causing this. It's funny that you would even think that haha.

Why is it funny? Is there some obvious explanation for this I am missing? Seen it a couple of times now.

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#229

Post by marroon »

arcticfox wrote: post #213
Cakez0r wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can short Tether on Kraken.

Shorting Tether is pretty strange, since if it works as designed it will essentially never increase in value, there's no risk on that end. And if it's a fraud that collapses, the short pays off big. Can somebody explain how that effect would get priced into the market? I can't think of another commodity like that.

The price is the interest you pay on the borrowed short shares

Re: An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

#230

Post by ataturk »

I read to the part where it says Potter was connected with Bear Stearns. Full stop. This stuff is gigantic scam operated by scam artists outside the typical regulatory structures. In that regard, it is identical to the pink sheets penny stock market of Wolf of Wall Street fame.
Post reply on HN