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Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

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Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#81

Post by zanny »

RyanZAG wrote: post #78
kyleblarson wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine that similar things happened in the early days of online equities brokerages.

Not even just the early days - Microsoft's fairly recent attempt at providing software for the London Stock Exchange met with disaster and frequent downtime [1]. This from a major tech giant, not just a card game exchange. Running a real exchange is a very difficult thing to do once the scale starts to ramp up. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/4676369/Seven-hou...

This. I don't get why everyone is harping that one private company being completely incompetent has any reflection on the technology it acted as an exchange for.

MtGox never had their shit in order, exploded overnight because Bitcoin is awesome, and hopefully we are finally seeing their inevitable collapse so that someone with more competency can take over.

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#83

Post by aninhumer »

crazy1van wrote: post #59
hnnewguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I almost bought 1,000 btc Are you just as bitter that you missed Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Priceline, Intuitive Surgical or CNR? Point being, these opportunities are everywhere, always. You're surrounded by them right now, they're just not obvious. But neither was BitCoin. And with the above you're actually buying into a real company, rather than speculating on a price change.

> Are you just as bitter that you missed Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Priceline, Intuitive Surgical or CNR? Great point and one that is easy to lose sight of. I think bitcoin stings a little extra because many people on HN thought at the back of their mind that it might be big, but never acted. Whereas, at the time many of these stocks were cheap, most people weren't even considering buying them.

>many people on HN thought at the back of their mind that it might be big

I don't think it's even that for a lot of people. What makes me feel stupid is that I considered buying a few coins just to play with, and if I had they'd be worth thousands.

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#84

Post by zanny »

maxerickson wrote: post #35
mcherm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Number of users holding bitcoins 2. Number of users SPENDING bitcoins to purchase goods 3. Number of merchants accepting bitcoins for goods 4. Total $ value of bitcoins being spent to purchase goods 5. Total $ value of bitcoins being spent to perform international money transfers 6. Amount of press (bad press OK, good press is worth much more) that bitcoins are getting as it drives 1 and 3. I'm sure others have th…

Is there anybody publishing reliable numbers for any of those?

https://blockchain.info/

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#85

Post by zanny »

maxerickson wrote: post #5
lectrick wrote: post #4

Buy when there's blood in the streets (assuming the fundamentals are still good, which it looks like they are...) http://www.bitcoinpulse.com/

Can you explain what you consider to be the more important fundamentals for bitcoin?

Integrity of the cryptography. It is the backing value of the currency, after all.

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#86

Post by minimax »

jessedhillon wrote: post #69
minimax wrote: post #37

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.

I'd sooner consider your comment a reminder that people will apply whatever possible interpretation to the facts is necessary in order to appear right. It's hard to even understand what it is you think you're contributing to the conversation. A dad-from-Growing-Pains-style chat on where to put our money? Reminding us that Mtgox -- which has a story on HN about them every other day -- is a clunky Rube Goldberg machine…

Sorry I hurt your feelings. Did you lose money or something?

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#87

Post by zanny »

kirk21 wrote: post #18

Ok, time to find another exchange. Considering http://www.coinnext.com and https://localbitcoins.com Other suggestions?

I started using bitfinex recently. Other exchanges I've used have had miriads of downtime, and I just moved off campbx because their site is so slow (and their market cap has shrunk huge). The other plus is that their fees are often half of other exchanges, I went from a .5% comission on cbx for sales to a .15%.

Bitstamp is also good, I hear, but I just went with finex because their fees are lower =P.

I think it is important to use an exchange outside the US though, because I expect the fed to start going Orwell on any bitcoin company soon.

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#88

Post by ForHackernews »

dalke wrote: post #53
koliber wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am in no position to predict the future of bitcoins, all new markets have these problems. At an early point in their history, stocks also had low liquidity and crappy technology. Both of these conditions will improve as an asset becomes more popular. It is a chicken-and-egg problem.

I think your sentence has too much of a tone of inevitability. "... will improve as an asset ..." should surely be "will improve if an asset ..." or perhaps "... in order for ...". There's plenty of new markets which failed to take off, and died after a few years of use. Confederate dollars aren't quite the useful currency they once were, as an obvious example. Otherwise it cuts too close to survivorship bias: is the…

> is there a popular asset where the market has "low liquidity and crappy technology"?

Yes, real estate.

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#89

Post by Guvante »

koliber wrote: post #40
minimax wrote: post #37

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.

While I am in no position to predict the future of bitcoins, all new markets have these problems. At an early point in their history, stocks also had low liquidity and crappy technology. Both of these conditions will improve as an asset becomes more popular. It is a chicken-and-egg problem.

You are talking about the future of bitcoin, he is talking about the present.

There may eventually be a time where trading in bitcoins is productive, but for now it is a bit risky.

Re: Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals, Price Drop Follows

#90

Post by jessedhillon »

minimax wrote: post #86
jessedhillon wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd sooner consider your comment a reminder that people will apply whatever possible interpretation to the facts is necessary in order to appear right. It's hard to even understand what it is you think you're contributing to the conversation. A dad-from-Growing-Pains-style chat on where to put our money? Reminding us that Mtgox -- which has a story on HN about them every other day -- is a clunky Rube Goldberg machine…

Sorry I hurt your feelings. Did you lose money or something?

No. It's really not obvious what it is you think you're adding to the conversation.
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