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This is HUGE news on Bitcoin - nothing like this has ever happened in it's history. Market went from $250 to $110 in 5 hours. MtGox was down for 30 minutes to

This is HUGE news on Bitcoin - nothing like this has ever happened in it's history. Market went from $250 to $110 in 5 hours. MtGox was down for 30 minutes today. Trading lag was 600 seconds for orders placed at market prices. April 10th, 2013 may be the day that will be remember for the next 20 years as the day that Bitcoin crashed and either (A) never recovered or (B) kept progressing after an incredible Blip. Definitely HN fodder today.

imsofuture 14y ago
It's hard to treat this re-pricing as a huge crash given that it was preceded by an equally unprecedented boom.
- ritchiea 14y ago
  It's not surprising but everyone sensible was wondering when it would happen.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
Should bitcoin continue from here as topic of noteworthy discussion, I can say with absolute certainty this will not be the last time it crashes.
sneak 14y ago
> nothing like this has ever happened in it's history Completely false. The curve mirrors the speculative run-up from $0.50 to $30 pretty closely... the LAST time bitcoin's market scaled an order of magnitude. It's happened before. It will happen again.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  I stand corrected - this has happened once before in Bitcoin's history, so apparently there have been two times in which Bitcoin price changes have been suitable HN fodder. Though, now, it's a $1B+ valuation and in the New York Times.
  - jelled 14y ago
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/business/media/04link.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/business/media/04link.html...
pygy_ 14y ago
The 50% drop is larger than usual, but 30% falls have regularly been seen during the current rally, and they recovered as fast as they occurred. Furthemore, the trade volume in Bitcoin is unexceptional. Edit, 10:56PM CET: It went down to ~$100, and it is already back up to $180. I predict another drop in the next few hours, then a recovery around at least 200. That's the usual pattern.
jelled 14y ago
You must be new to bitcoin. Take a look at what the price did over the Summer of 2011.
kybernetikos 14y ago
> Definitely HN fodder today. Maybe, but my own unscientific, vague sense is that I've been seeing multiple bitcoin related submissions to HN every day for quite some time now. At this stage all of the arguments have been hashed and rehashed (ho ho) in the comment threads to the extent that they're getting pretty repetitive and tedious (especially since so many of them are so political). So, sure, it was marginally interesting a few days ago that bitcoin was up a significant amount so we had multiple articles about that, and then it was up the next day too so we had some articles, and then there were opinion pieces about why it was a bad idea / good idea, none of which really said anything much new, then there were columns about how it was becoming mainstream (which was obvious if you'd been following all the bitcoin startups that also get posted to HN), then today we find it's down an unusual amount. Surely you can see how this is becoming a little grating even for someone who started out with an interest in the topic.
- thatthatis 14y ago
  The big crash that mathematically had to happen, happened today.
- beedogs 14y ago
  We could go back to talking about Aaron Swartz if you'd prefer.
muyuu 14y ago
Bitcoin has been through worse than this at least twice.
- kragen 14y ago
  Last time it crashed 50% (which I think has only happened once, in 2011) it took more than a few hours.
  - muyuu 14y ago
    Which made it a lot worse. It looked pretty much like the end of the system to a lot of people. Whoever bought at 250 and was looking all day at the graph to see how to scalp some dough, got exactly what he deserved. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
    - kragen 14y ago
      Worse or better, this is certainly different! Also, it seems to be down below 70 now, so another 50% drop since yesterday, depending on what time you're talking about.
      - muyuu 14y ago
        If it stays < $20 two weeks from now, it will be in the same league as the first huge fiasco.

imsofuture 14y ago

It's hard to treat this re-pricing as a huge crash given that it was preceded by an equally unprecedented boom.

ritchiea 14y ago
It's not surprising but everyone sensible was wondering when it would happen.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

Should bitcoin continue from here as topic of noteworthy discussion, I can say with absolute certainty this will not be the last time it crashes.

sneak 14y ago

> nothing like this has ever happened in it's history Completely false. The curve mirrors the speculative run-up from $0.50 to $30 pretty closely... the LAST time bitcoin's market scaled an order of magnitude. It's happened before. It will happen again.

ghshephard 14y ago
I stand corrected - this has happened once before in Bitcoin's history, so apparently there have been two times in which Bitcoin price changes have been suitable HN fodder. Though, now, it's a $1B+ valuation and in the New York Times.
- jelled 14y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/business/media/04link.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/business/media/04link.html...

pygy_ 14y ago

The 50% drop is larger than usual, but 30% falls have regularly been seen during the current rally, and they recovered as fast as they occurred. Furthemore, the trade volume in Bitcoin is unexceptional. Edit, 10:56PM CET: It went down to ~$100, and it is already back up to $180. I predict another drop in the next few hours, then a recovery around at least 200. That's the usual pattern.

jelled 14y ago

You must be new to bitcoin. Take a look at what the price did over the Summer of 2011.

kybernetikos 14y ago

> Definitely HN fodder today. Maybe, but my own unscientific, vague sense is that I've been seeing multiple bitcoin related submissions to HN every day for quite some time now. At this stage all of the arguments have been hashed and rehashed (ho ho) in the comment threads to the extent that they're getting pretty repetitive and tedious (especially since so many of them are so political). So, sure, it was marginally interesting a few days ago that bitcoin was up a significant amount so we had multiple articles about that, and then it was up the next day too so we had some articles, and then there were opinion pieces about why it was a bad idea / good idea, none of which really said anything much new, then there were columns about how it was becoming mainstream (which was obvious if you'd been following all the bitcoin startups that also get posted to HN), then today we find it's down an unusual amount. Surely you can see how this is becoming a little grating even for someone who started out with an interest in the topic.

thatthatis 14y ago
The big crash that mathematically had to happen, happened today.
beedogs 14y ago
We could go back to talking about Aaron Swartz if you'd prefer.

muyuu 14y ago

Bitcoin has been through worse than this at least twice.

kragen 14y ago
Last time it crashed 50% (which I think has only happened once, in 2011) it took more than a few hours.
- muyuu 14y ago
  Which made it a lot worse. It looked pretty much like the end of the system to a lot of people. Whoever bought at 250 and was looking all day at the graph to see how to scalp some dough, got exactly what he deserved. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
  - kragen 14y ago
    Worse or better, this is certainly different! Also, it seems to be down below 70 now, so another 50% drop since yesterday, depending on what time you're talking about.
    - muyuu 14y ago
      If it stays < $20 two weeks from now, it will be in the same league as the first huge fiasco.