7 ms·

Luckily, everyone with deposits in Mt.Gox can convert them to bitcoins and send them to some other address. This is one of the benefits of Bitcoin.

by pdog 13y ago

simias 13y ago
If mtgox crashes bitcoin crashes, at least temporarily. You'll end up with your bitcoins safe, but they won't be worth $100+ anymore (if ever again).
wcoenen 13y ago
Unfortunately, nobody will be willing to sell bitcoins for USD on mtgox if they can't ever get their USD out.
drcode 13y ago
Right, but my guess is people who have dollar holdings on mtgox aren't going to find it as easy now to sell them in order to do such a transfer.
drcode 13y ago
This assumes they haven't already spent some of their depositors' bitcoin and can run out. (Not claiming they have done this, just pointing out this scenario is possible)
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Luckily, everyone with deposits in Mt.Gox can convert them to bitcoins and send them to some other address. If you have US dollars on Mt.Gox, and no one can take US dollars out of Mt.Gox now and there is very low confidence that this will change in the future, its going to be very hard to find anyone give up any other currency or virtual currency for US dollars -- whether you want bitcoins, yen, slips of latinum, or triganic pu, no one is going to give you them for dollars on Mt.Gox if dollars deposited on Mt.Gox are trapped.
- jaggederest 13y ago
  Sure they will, coinbase will quite happily turn them back into USD for you.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    If you have bitcoins on Mt.Gox, sure, you can get USD for them elsewhere. The issue I was raising was that if you have USD on Mt.Gox and people don't think USD will be able to be extracted from Mt.Gox, you will have trouble converting your USD to bitcoin to get it off Mt.Gox, because people who have bitcoin on Mt.Gox will be reluctant to convert it to USD on Mt.Gox.
    - jaggederest 13y ago
      That's true, but I'm unclear why you'd store USD for any length of time on mtgox anyway.
      - pmorici 13y ago
        It takes a long time to transfer money into MtGox and with the wild price fluctuations it might be prudent to wait for a better price instead of buying at the current market price the second the transfer clears.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > That's true, but I'm unclear why you'd store USD for any length of time on mtgox anyway. The same reason you'd keep any currency in an account tied to a particular marketplace: liquidity that allows you to trade without the delay of getting money into the marketplace from somewhere else.
  - quackerhacker 13y ago
    Exactly what I did when I heard about dwolla no longer offering withdrawals for MtGox....I love coinbase! It's so simple and the UI is clean.
zwtaylor 13y ago
That seems to be what's happening at the moment. I initially assumed this announcement would cause a panic sell-off, instead it seems as if a lot of users are now converting their USD back into BTC in light of the hiatus. The exchange rate has ticked up pretty steadily as a result.
- gwern 13y ago
  If it was just a MtGox only issue, then bitcoins on MtGox ought to be at a premium compared to the other exchanges. But if you look at http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ it seems like MtGox is perfectly in line with the other markets - within half a dollar of Bitstamp and actually cheaper than BitBox etc.
  - andrewla 13y ago
    Check again -- look at http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html. There's a significant premium on MtGox. At the time that I'm writing this, the values are mtgoxUSD: 112.99 bitstampUSD: 107 btceUSD: 106.87 cbxUSD: 106.12 vcxUSD: 105 bitoxUSD: 95
    - gwern 13y ago
      I get a different version checking now - MtGox isn't even the most demanding of Bitcoin: icbitUSD 100 bitstampUSD 103 btceUSD 106 cbxUSD Camp 107 mtgoxUSD 109 rockUSD 109 bitboxUSD 118 It's tied with rock, and as I said, below BitBox. Looks like Bitstamp has diverged more, though.
  - zwtaylor 13y ago
    This is true, but Mt. Gox historically has the lowest exchange rate as they have far more liquidity than other exchanges. Gox is also the primary indicator against which other markets rise or fall, today is no exception. In an unrelated note, big fan of your site.

Luckily, everyone with deposits in Mt.Gox can convert them to bitcoins and send them to some other address. This is one of the benefits of Bitcoin.

by pdog 13y ago

Luckily, everyone with deposits in Mt.Gox can convert them to bitcoins and send them to some other address. This is one of the benefits of Bitcoin.

simias 13y ago

If mtgox crashes bitcoin crashes, at least temporarily. You'll end up with your bitcoins safe, but they won't be worth $100+ anymore (if ever again).

wcoenen 13y ago

Unfortunately, nobody will be willing to sell bitcoins for USD on mtgox if they can't ever get their USD out.

drcode 13y ago

Right, but my guess is people who have dollar holdings on mtgox aren't going to find it as easy now to sell them in order to do such a transfer.

drcode 13y ago

This assumes they haven't already spent some of their depositors' bitcoin and can run out. (Not claiming they have done this, just pointing out this scenario is possible)

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Luckily, everyone with deposits in Mt.Gox can convert them to bitcoins and send them to some other address. If you have US dollars on Mt.Gox, and no one can take US dollars out of Mt.Gox now and there is very low confidence that this will change in the future, its going to be very hard to find anyone give up any other currency or virtual currency for US dollars -- whether you want bitcoins, yen, slips of latinum, or triganic pu, no one is going to give you them for dollars on Mt.Gox if dollars deposited on Mt.Gox are trapped.

jaggederest 13y ago
Sure they will, coinbase will quite happily turn them back into USD for you.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  If you have bitcoins on Mt.Gox, sure, you can get USD for them elsewhere. The issue I was raising was that if you have USD on Mt.Gox and people don't think USD will be able to be extracted from Mt.Gox, you will have trouble converting your USD to bitcoin to get it off Mt.Gox, because people who have bitcoin on Mt.Gox will be reluctant to convert it to USD on Mt.Gox.
  - jaggederest 13y ago
    That's true, but I'm unclear why you'd store USD for any length of time on mtgox anyway.
    - pmorici 13y ago
      It takes a long time to transfer money into MtGox and with the wild price fluctuations it might be prudent to wait for a better price instead of buying at the current market price the second the transfer clears.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > That's true, but I'm unclear why you'd store USD for any length of time on mtgox anyway. The same reason you'd keep any currency in an account tied to a particular marketplace: liquidity that allows you to trade without the delay of getting money into the marketplace from somewhere else.
- quackerhacker 13y ago
  Exactly what I did when I heard about dwolla no longer offering withdrawals for MtGox....I love coinbase! It's so simple and the UI is clean.

zwtaylor 13y ago

That seems to be what's happening at the moment. I initially assumed this announcement would cause a panic sell-off, instead it seems as if a lot of users are now converting their USD back into BTC in light of the hiatus. The exchange rate has ticked up pretty steadily as a result.

gwern 13y ago
If it was just a MtGox only issue, then bitcoins on MtGox ought to be at a premium compared to the other exchanges. But if you look at http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ it seems like MtGox is perfectly in line with the other markets - within half a dollar of Bitstamp and actually cheaper than BitBox etc.
- andrewla 13y ago
  Check again -- look at http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html. There's a significant premium on MtGox. At the time that I'm writing this, the values are mtgoxUSD: 112.99 bitstampUSD: 107 btceUSD: 106.87 cbxUSD: 106.12 vcxUSD: 105 bitoxUSD: 95
  - gwern 13y ago
    I get a different version checking now - MtGox isn't even the most demanding of Bitcoin: icbitUSD 100 bitstampUSD 103 btceUSD 106 cbxUSD Camp 107 mtgoxUSD 109 rockUSD 109 bitboxUSD 118 It's tied with rock, and as I said, below BitBox. Looks like Bitstamp has diverged more, though.
- zwtaylor 13y ago
  This is true, but Mt. Gox historically has the lowest exchange rate as they have far more liquidity than other exchanges. Gox is also the primary indicator against which other markets rise or fall, today is no exception. In an unrelated note, big fan of your site.