3 ms·

So I don't quite understand is the falling price because mtgox is down for maintenance (if so why does it have that effect, I don't run into the street and burn

by pmorici 14y ago

So I don't quite understand is the falling price because mtgox is down for maintenance (if so why does it have that effect, I don't run into the street and burn my cash just because the banks are closed on Sundays) or is that just a coincidence?

dragonwriter 14y ago
> So I don't quite understand is the falling price because mtgox is down for maintenance It had already dropped considerably (below $130, IIRC) from the ~$200 it had bounced back to from the earlier drop from $266 by the time MtGox shut down trading. The shutdown of trading at MtGox may have encouraged further decline across other markets, but it doesn't seem to be the original source of the decline. > if so why does it have that effect, I don't run into the street and burn my cash just because the banks are closed on Sundays OTOH, you might demand more dollars for goods (or just be less likely to accept them at all), or, on the other side, accept less good for dollars and be more eager to get rid of them if the main outlet for trading dollars for other currency shut down on a day that it would normally have been open (e.g., not a regular Sunday office closure) after a day of high volatility trading where the dollar had lost half its value before the trading was shutdown.
pseudonym 14y ago
MtGox is not the only exchange, although it might seem that way sometimes. It would be like your bank is closed on Sunday, but there's still banks from the same branch open next door. Because the blockchain is shared, the only thing that mtgox being down prevents you from doing is buying/selling with money stored on mtgox itself-- you can still move money from your personal wallet(s) (you're not keeping 100% of your BTC on mtgox, right?) to another exchange and sell it there.
yebyen 14y ago
Imagine what it would be like if there were bank holidays, but they are not predictable in a calendar sense in advance like our holidays... and every bank has their own list of holidays. And also there are only five banks. I think the price is falling because there's been a speculative bubble rising, and the speculators' confidence is a fickle thing. Maybe up until now, you were a speculator and you didn't think you needed to go anywhere else. Now Mt.Gox has frozen trading and they are also not processing withdrawals. Most people stop trading too. So, it's a fire sale, because nobody knows if our bubble will blow itself back up again, or how long it's going to take for that to happen. If you were keeping 2/3 of your money at Mt.Gox and now you're afraid that it's utterly gone (at least you know you won't be trading it today), so you've only got 1/3 of what you had, and everyone in town says it's worth 1/7 what it was yesterday. A few people would surely take the money and get rid of it.

by pmorici 14y ago

dragonwriter 14y ago

> So I don't quite understand is the falling price because mtgox is down for maintenance It had already dropped considerably (below $130, IIRC) from the ~$200 it had bounced back to from the earlier drop from $266 by the time MtGox shut down trading. The shutdown of trading at MtGox may have encouraged further decline across other markets, but it doesn't seem to be the original source of the decline. > if so why does it have that effect, I don't run into the street and burn my cash just because the banks are closed on Sundays OTOH, you might demand more dollars for goods (or just be less likely to accept them at all), or, on the other side, accept less good for dollars and be more eager to get rid of them if the main outlet for trading dollars for other currency shut down on a day that it would normally have been open (e.g., not a regular Sunday office closure) after a day of high volatility trading where the dollar had lost half its value before the trading was shutdown.

pseudonym 14y ago

MtGox is not the only exchange, although it might seem that way sometimes. It would be like your bank is closed on Sunday, but there's still banks from the same branch open next door. Because the blockchain is shared, the only thing that mtgox being down prevents you from doing is buying/selling with money stored on mtgox itself-- you can still move money from your personal wallet(s) (you're not keeping 100% of your BTC on mtgox, right?) to another exchange and sell it there.

yebyen 14y ago

Imagine what it would be like if there were bank holidays, but they are not predictable in a calendar sense in advance like our holidays... and every bank has their own list of holidays. And also there are only five banks. I think the price is falling because there's been a speculative bubble rising, and the speculators' confidence is a fickle thing. Maybe up until now, you were a speculator and you didn't think you needed to go anywhere else. Now Mt.Gox has frozen trading and they are also not processing withdrawals. Most people stop trading too. So, it's a fire sale, because nobody knows if our bubble will blow itself back up again, or how long it's going to take for that to happen. If you were keeping 2/3 of your money at Mt.Gox and now you're afraid that it's utterly gone (at least you know you won't be trading it today), so you've only got 1/3 of what you had, and everyone in town says it's worth 1/7 what it was yesterday. A few people would surely take the money and get rid of it.