4 ms·

So for someone who doesn't understand economics that much, what does this mean? Have bitcoins finally failed?

lordgilman 15y ago
Someone just went to sell a ton of bitcoins at once. Because the market's so small they were able to fill all the buy orders placed all the way down to 1 cent per bitcoin. Some people with long-shot bets made quite a bit of money. About half of the 500k filled the buy orders on the way down and half of them were sold at the 1 cent price.
- joezydeco 15y ago
  Which kind of implies someone was doing this with stolen coins, right? You don't sell so cheap if you have USD 8,500,000 on paper and want to get as much possible out of the sale.
  - lubos 15y ago
    unless you are US government trying to destroy alternative currency. right?
    - joezydeco 15y ago
      This didn't destroy bitcoin... but it made a lot of cash for some bottom feeders.
      - barkingcat 15y ago
        What they did was destroyed the reputation of Mt. Gox - I don't think the Gox people will have a very good outcome as their customers jump ship to other exchanges. BUT on the other hand, you could say Mt. Gox was asking for it with such poor security measures. A day ago, it was a CSRF hack ... and today it's a database dump. I tell ya, tomorrow, the code for their trading platform will hit the net. In fact, I wouldn't put it past the operators of the other exchanges to perpetrate something like this. In reality, no damage to the bitcoin network was done, but Mt.Gox ended up with egg on their face. Where will all the trades go? To other bitcoin exchanges - and there goes the services charges too. There's a sizable amount of money to be made by taking down Mt. Gox.
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InclinedPlane 15y ago
Imagine if someone stole 7% of all printed currency in the US and then traded it for gold at effective prices as low as pennies on the dollar. That's effectively what just happened with bitcoins.
Tichy 15y ago
BitCoins haven't really started yet in my opinion. It seems far too early to say they have failed or not.
rmc 15y ago
Not as such. As an example, Steve Jobs ownes 7% the shared of Disney. If tomorrow, he were to sell them all, no matter what the price, there might not be enough people to buy them all, so people who, for the laugh, said they'd buy Disney stock at $0.01 a share would eventually get the shares. Thus the stock price for Disney would drop to $0.01. A similar thing just happened to BitCoin, but rather than shares of Disney being traded, it was bitcoins.
- chamakits 15y ago
  This is the best explanation so far. Thanks!

Someone just went to sell a ton of bitcoins at once. Because the market's so small they were able to fill all the buy orders placed all the way down to 1 cent per bitcoin. Some people with long-shot bets made quite a bit of money. About half of the 500k filled the buy orders on the way down and half of them were sold at the 1 cent price.

joezydeco 15y ago
Which kind of implies someone was doing this with stolen coins, right? You don't sell so cheap if you have USD 8,500,000 on paper and want to get as much possible out of the sale.
- lubos 15y ago
  unless you are US government trying to destroy alternative currency. right?
  - joezydeco 15y ago
    This didn't destroy bitcoin... but it made a lot of cash for some bottom feeders.
    - barkingcat 15y ago
      What they did was destroyed the reputation of Mt. Gox - I don't think the Gox people will have a very good outcome as their customers jump ship to other exchanges. BUT on the other hand, you could say Mt. Gox was asking for it with such poor security measures. A day ago, it was a CSRF hack ... and today it's a database dump. I tell ya, tomorrow, the code for their trading platform will hit the net. In fact, I wouldn't put it past the operators of the other exchanges to perpetrate something like this. In reality, no damage to the bitcoin network was done, but Mt.Gox ended up with egg on their face. Where will all the trades go? To other bitcoin exchanges - and there goes the services charges too. There's a sizable amount of money to be made by taking down Mt. Gox.

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InclinedPlane 15y ago

Imagine if someone stole 7% of all printed currency in the US and then traded it for gold at effective prices as low as pennies on the dollar. That's effectively what just happened with bitcoins.

Tichy 15y ago

BitCoins haven't really started yet in my opinion. It seems far too early to say they have failed or not.

rmc 15y ago

Not as such. As an example, Steve Jobs ownes 7% the shared of Disney. If tomorrow, he were to sell them all, no matter what the price, there might not be enough people to buy them all, so people who, for the laugh, said they'd buy Disney stock at $0.01 a share would eventually get the shares. Thus the stock price for Disney would drop to $0.01. A similar thing just happened to BitCoin, but rather than shares of Disney being traded, it was bitcoins.

chamakits 15y ago
This is the best explanation so far. Thanks!