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Intrade Ceases Trading Activity

intrade.com

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Re: Intrade Ceases Trading Activity

#32

Post by vellum »

gameshot911 wrote: post #20

The money is gone. Either fraud (founders were skimming off the top all along), or they got hacked (and the 'hack' could have been an inside job as well). That's why they're not paying out - they don't have enough funds available. Same thing happened previously to one of the largest bitcoin exchanges[1]. [1] http://www.dailytech.com/Inside+the+MegaHack+of+Bitcoin+the+...

After they got shut out of the US market in November 2012, they lost a lot of customers overnight and had to pay all of them out in full. It might be something like the Madoff case, where he might still be free, if the financial crisis hadn't hit and made his customers cash out.

Re: Intrade Ceases Trading Activity

#34

Post by ig1 »

gameshot911 wrote: post #20

The money is gone. Either fraud (founders were skimming off the top all along), or they got hacked (and the 'hack' could have been an inside job as well). That's why they're not paying out - they don't have enough funds available. Same thing happened previously to one of the largest bitcoin exchanges[1]. [1] http://www.dailytech.com/Inside+the+MegaHack+of+Bitcoin+the+...

Unless you have strong evidence to support that statement I'd suggest deleting it as it's potentially libellous.

Re: Intrade Ceases Trading Activity

#35

Post by ad »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #10
andrewcooke wrote: post #5

is it related to http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr6423-12 and the subsequent collapse in volume http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e0c9eea0-7ae4-11e2-915b-00144... ?

Probably. Interesting line the CFTC is taking though, since it is only able to regulate US citizen's use of commodity markets and predictions are a commodity by the definition of the law as far as I can tell [1]. The 'fiction' here is that you're actually going to by pork bellies or soy beans or oranges, when really your just buying and trading the 'right' to buy these commodities at a particular price. So "The 49'er…

Agree with you on the 49ers example but Intrade had a few contracts that were closer to the ones regulated by the cftc: the price of oil, gold, the DOW, etc.

Re: Intrade Ceases Trading Activity

#38

Post by raverbashing »

ad wrote: post #37
mattyohe wrote: post #17

Intrade shutting down? Huh, what are the odds of that?

Your joke is even better since one of the Intrade contracts was "intrade will no longer exist in X years"

Talk about an intrinsically impossible bet to win!

(at least when betting on the platform itself)

Re: Intrade Ceases Trading Activity

#39

Post by jplewicke »

hackerboos wrote: post #33
jey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate for the ignorant among us?

Markets are unpredictable.

Markets are only hard-to-predict in terms of future prices and returns. If all you want to do is to compare the relative value of two assets, the current price is a great place to start out. For example, the market is pretty sure that Exxon Mobil is worth vastly more than Groupon. Likewise, a prediction market does just fine at telling you stuff like "Romney is much more likely than Ron Paul to be the Republican candidate."

Re: Intrade Ceases Trading Activity

#40

Post by rvkennedy »

gameshot911 wrote: post #20

The money is gone. Either fraud (founders were skimming off the top all along), or they got hacked (and the 'hack' could have been an inside job as well). That's why they're not paying out - they don't have enough funds available. Same thing happened previously to one of the largest bitcoin exchanges[1]. [1] http://www.dailytech.com/Inside+the+MegaHack+of+Bitcoin+the+...

They are paying out:

Settle all open positions and calculate the settled account value of all Member accounts immediately.

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