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MtGox's Bitcoin price drops to $260 (others at $600+)
- justizin 13y agoTrade with confidence on the world's largest bitcoin exchange!
- smtddr 13y agoSomeone should make: http://canyouwithdrawfrommtgox.com http://canyouwithdrawfrommtgox.com ....and just have a giant font "YES" or "NO".
- benjamincburns 13y agoWell that didn't take long!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- MysticFear 13y agoLove the DOGE donation address, already #2 in a lot of people's eyes.
- sbolak 13y agoHaha wow, that was awesome.
- dpanah 13y agoCan Mt.Gox buy at $260 at home and cash at $650 elsewhere and laugh all the way to the bankster?
- ZoF 13y agoAre you asking if they can buy from themselves...? Or do you think that exchanges set a price and then are given leave by the council of BitCoin to just hand out an infinite number of BTC's at that price. They have an inventory, yes they could sell coins but it would be view-able on the blockchain if they started moving lots of inventory through a major exchange.
- corin_ 13y agoThey are an exchange, not a shop. They would be buying from their users, not themselves.
- dpanah 13y agoNo, they just become the buyer at Mt.Gox for all those sellers, then turn around and sell either already funded accounts with all the Bitcoins they already have had, or they move the ones they just bought round about to the accounts at other exchanges. Who gives a flying fuck you can trace it. You wanted to sell at $260...not them. Who do you think is buying over there for X sakes! All these new buyers coming in? blah
- gcb0 13y agobuy from where at 260? they ate the ones selling at that price. nobody else its like a shady guy in the corner offering you gold for half the price. good luck with that.
- 0x0 13y agoIsn't it the account holders at gox who are selling at that price?
- 0x0 13y agoOnly if they actually have any real BTCs left at home to cash elsewhere.
- jellicle 13y agoYes, if Mt. Gox is certain they can deliver on the locked-up account bitcoins, then it can use its cash reserves to buy bitcoins elsewhere, then trade with its own account holders, effectively letting them cash out a little early in return for Mt. Gox taking 50% of the value. Alternately, if Mt. Gox is certain they canNOT or will not deliver on the locked-up bitcoins, they can trade some of the locked-up non-existent ones for real ones and recover 50% of the value. Either way, Mt. Gox makes a killing because they know the state of their books and their future intentions and you do not. They can bet knowing the outcome of the bet. This is why you want financial regulation. (Incidentally, this is what Goldman Sachs is doing with aluminum and other commodity markets.) If Mt. Gox has your money or fake money, you need to contact a good class action law firm and see if you can get them interested.
- thrill 13y agoI do not want financial regulation of virtual currency. I want people to be able to decide for themselves if they understand and are willing to take on risk - if they are not, then don't. Only allowing winners and losers and warts and unicorns will allow virtual currencies to find their place. I DO want fraud prosecution, but we already have that.
- gamblor956 13y agoCurrency shouldn't be risky. It's a means of transacting. People shouldn't have to assume risk just to transact; they'll simply choose a less risky vehicle. It's fundamentally why Bitcoin won't succeed unless and until it gets its volatility under control.
- neomantra 13y agoIf MtGox halts trading, settles all pending BTC exchange transactions, return all fiat deposits, and then intentionally never returns any BTC, does one have any recourse? I guess it would be some matter of Japanese law, international law (for claimants outside Japan), and the MtGox terms of service? What if these were virtual pets that people had traded?
- tlrobinson 13y ago
- anonymoushn 13y agoIf 1 MTGOX BTC is backed by 1 actual BTC, yes. The fact that they are not doing this is certainly interesting.
- jellicle 13y agoOkay, God. Because of course you would have to be God (that is, omniscient) in order to know what sort of positions Mt. Gox and its corporate executives are taking in the various bitcoin markets. Wait. You're not omniscient? Then why would you write such a silly thing?
- anonymoushn 13y agoWell, you can tell that they haven't bought all the orders that are under $600 because there are still orders on the book to sell for under $600. In particular, using only orders currently on the books of various exchanges, you could currently buy ~1600 MTGOX BTC at ~$300 and sell an equal number at ~$600. If you were Mt. Gox, would you take the free $480,000 or would you leave it? Do I also have to be God to know that the sky is blue? Edit: I suppose, based on your other reply, that you are contending that the orders on the books are already from Mt. Gox. I'm not sure why you would believe this, but let's pretend it is so for a moment. This leads back to the same conclusion: either Mt. Gox wants to sell BTC worth $600 at $300 and lose money, or they want to sell MTGOX BTC worth $0 at $300 and make money. Which do you suppose is likely to be the case?
- jellicle 13y agoSo, you made an assertion about what Mt. Gox is doing that is entirely unsupported by any knowledge on your part, I pointed out that you couldn't possibly know that, and your counter is that because Mt. Gox hasn't wiped out the entire order book in a particular direction, they must not be participating in the market at all. Such brilliance.
- anonymoushn 13y agoSorry, there has been a misunderstanding. My first comment to which you replied could be rephrased as "There is a big arb opportunity which they are not exploiting, and it is interesting that they are not doing it." The continued existence of the arb opportunity is a public fact, which is why I was a bit baffled that it would be questioned. It was not clear to me at first that you believed I had claimed that Mt. Gox was not participating in the market at all.
- michaelt 13y agoIf they're insiders, why buy before selling? An insider could take the bitcoin from the vault without updating the seller's balance on the website, sell it on a different exchange for $600, then pay the $260 to the Gox seller to balance the books. That way you're not limited to the number of $260 bitcoins you can afford.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tectonic 13y agoSo I guess the market estimates a 50% chance that they disappear with the coins. 50% arbitrage upside if you can get money in and buy bitcoins at half price, 50% loss chance if they vanish.
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoThat is not correct. Issue at hand is that mtgox potentially lost a lot of bitcoins due to transaction malleability. Question is - are they solvent? Or to rephrase that, do they have enough bitcoins to payout when large fraction of people decide to withdraw at the same time. Market seems to be betting at "unlikely".
- gwern 13y agoMm, it's not quite that simple. If you were on an exchange where people were trading real!Bitcoins for MtGox!Bitcoins, then you could try to interpret the discount as equaling the market estimate (and the bitcoinbuilder.com prices seem to put the overall risk at something more like 40% if I'm understanding them right); but this is the price from an exchange which only has MtGox!fiat and MtGox!Bitcoins - so you're seeing something which is more like 'conditional on MtGox failing, are they more likely to pay out Bitcoin or fiat balances?'
- CyrusL 13y agoThe discount is more complex than that. Most users also aren't able to withdraw fiat from Gox, so there isn't a liquidity advantage to selling your coins (which would raise the supply and lower the price). The 50% discount is probably because users believe that if Gox dies, they will have better odds of eventually recovering dollars rather than coins. These users believe the coins may have been lost, stolen, or end up unrecognized by the bankruptcy court. Also, there is lots of speculation about price manipulation at Gox. Some users believe that Gox is artificially lowering the price to help fix their insolvency.
- deeviant 13y agoArbitrage generally assumes low or no risk. This would be a bit closer to junk bounds or penny stocks.
- theatraine 13y agoDoes this represent an arbitrage opportunity? (it appears not, since MtGox is limiting transactions due to a bug in their implementation of the protocol.) Also, I wonder if anyone has used bots to perform HFT using bitcoin in the same manner that was used on traditional stock exchanges.
- camus2 13y agoNo because you can buy bitcoins but cant get them out of MtGox. At that point,it's just gambling.
- MartinCron 13y agoIf you're confident that MtGox will eventually get their shit together and that bitcoin will have at least that value when you can, then it's a gamble worth taking. It's not a gamble that I'm taking, but I understand the motivation of those who would.
- iamjustin 13y agoGreed is a powerful motivator, but I'm with you. If MtGox hasn't gotten their shit together in the year since they started having problems, I don't see why they would now.
- rasz_pl 13y agoThere is an exchange that trades real fake money and mtgox fake money.
- dscrd 13y agoI would claim that all sorts of money-making schemes that involve bitcoins are more or less still gambling.
- minimax 13y agoAlso, I wonder if anyone has used bots to perform HFT using bitcoin in the same manner that was used on traditional stock exchanges. There are certainly people out there with trading bots hooked up to the various exchanges. I know at least one guy who was trying something a few years ago. Because the volume is so low (~ few $M daily) I don't think there are any big players there. Also the market data and order entry protocols don't look like they would be suitable for the really high speed stuff. That said, the market data and order entry protocols are really simple and I think most exchanges offer them for free. An automated bitcoin/dollar trading program would be a pretty easy thing to whip up. It would probably be a good introduction to automated trading for people that are interested in that sort of thing.
- mappum 13y agoThis is pretty logical. MtGox halted BTC withdrawals because of the transaction malleability issue (which, due to MtGox's poorly made software, let people get their withdrawal payments more than once, leaving MtGox open to get its wallet emptied). So now many people are stuck with MtGoxBTC, which is simply a balance in MtGox's database. MtGoxBTC is being traded for actual BTC (on exchanges like https://www.bitcoinbuilder.com/ https://www.bitcoinbuilder.com/). It has a lower value since people are unsure whether or not MtGox will fix their system and let them take their money (IMO they probably will). Sellers are getting out to avoid the risk, and buyers are getting discounted (but potentially risky) BTC.
- hackerboos 13y ago>they probably will At this point it appears that MtGox could go either way.
- ZachPruckowski 13y agoI'd be fairly impressed if they survived - they seemed like they were already on the ropes in terms of solvency with it taking months to payout for BTC after the US government froze their accounts or fined them or whatever in May. I'm not really sure how many serious dick-punches like that a company can take.
- jedunnigan 13y agoThose funds were seized because of their relation to SR and other illicit activity. As such I don't think that has an effect on Gox's solvency.[1] [1]http://thegenesisblock.com/mt-gox-seizures-linked-silk-road-fed-testimonies http://thegenesisblock.com/mt-gox-seizures-linked-silk-road-...
- atwebb 13y agoIf they were running a ponzi type operation then any missing cash on hand could greatly disrupt their payments depending on the withdrawls at the time.
- foobarqux 13y agoThe question everyone should be asking is how are they funding operations with no more cash flow.
- rdmcfee 13y agoTheir cashflow hasn't halted. There are still plenty of trades happening between current GOX customers and they still get trading fees on these trades. The problem is that their customer acquisition and retention will take a massive hit because customers can't withdraw their coins (or fiat in a timely fasion).
- jonpo 13y agoThis sort of nonsense is why I will never touch bit-coin... Good luck..
- VLM 13y agoIts not nonsense so much as system borders. Look at the border between the Argentine financial system and ours. I suspect you want to be very careful right now... Or the Ukraine, where a shooting civil war has broken out today, I imagine forex market is going to get weird. Or the euro PIIGS recently or right now. Or Zimbabwe for the last decade or so. Or Germany in the 20s. Anytime you cross financial system borders, especially if you don't understand them or even understand that there is a border, things can get a bit dicey. I guess what I'm getting at is you're describing an emergent property of cross financial system transactions, nothing to do with BTC at all other being one particular example of a cross system border.
- ossreality 13y ago"I'm dumb and can't be bothered to learn anything" -jonpo strong post.
- brandonhsiao 13y agoDumb question I genuinely don't know the answer to: what's to stop me from buying a hundred Bitcoins from MtGox for $26,000 and selling it elsewhere for $60,000?
- grey-area 13y agoThey won't let you withdraw in any currency afaik.
- wmf 13y agoYou don't have $26K deposited in Gox and by the time you could do it the opportunity will be over.
- UVB-76 13y agoMtGox have halted withdrawals, so you can't sell the coins elsewhere at the moment.
- mediocregopher 13y agoIt's not currently possible to withdraw your 26k worth of BTC from MtGox, and for a long time now it is very difficult to withdraw USD as well. You could buy 26k of MtGoxBTC right now and wait for them to start withdrawls back up, and that would indeed net you a nice bit (assuming the market doesn't fluctuate very much during that event). However, right now it seems most are betting against that ever happening.
- dpanah 13y agoMt.Gox is the only one who can withdraw whatever it wants from Mt.Gox. Its not a regulated field here. Be Mt.Gox, sit at the bid and buy all the Bitcoin you want for $260ish. Get it over to hidden accounts \ people you took the time to set up in the last X months and sell at $600ish. Laugh all the way to the bank........million and millions and let all you guys A. Believe in Mt.Gox or B. it goes out of biz, who the flying fuck cares, they just cleaned up.
- brosco45 13y agoThere is a sucker born every minute, and a rich one every 20 minute.
- beedogs 13y agoPeople really need to stop consulting mtgox for BTC prices. I still hear it's "the largest exchange" on the news from time to time, which is equally stupid, as it hasn't been that in a long time. It's a poorly-run, irrelevant exchange, and I feel sorry for the folks with money trapped there.
- 97s 13y agoI tell you one thing, if I was in control of MtGox I would be buying all these bitcoin's up and making a huge profit when I indeed did fix my problems. Insider Trading in Bitcoins is basically happening right now IMO. This seems like a brilliant scheme to not only fix your business public persona by restoring and refunding everyone their money, but also make leaps and bounds of cash. Crash your own market, buy your coins back knowing your going to restore it. Restore your market, prices come back up, huge profits. EDIT: unless I misunderstand how all this works. I am assuming public sales coins for lowered value, mtgox insider buys knowing they are going to fix problems, mtgox insider then sells later.
- eloff 13y agoYes, but it's destroying what's left of their reputation. It would be of questionable value in the end. I already wouldn't touch then with a stick after past experiences, and I think most everyone feels that way now. There are better options with real customer service. Coinbase, by comparison, has been a pleasure.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- grey-area 13y agoI tell you one thing, if I was in control of MtGox I would be buying all these bitcoin's up and making a huge profit when I indeed did fix my problems. That mtgox is not in fact doing this (through a buyback program or proxies) tells you a lot about their confidence in their eventual recovery. If they were confident in recovery they could backstop prices and make a killing later by selling.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ChristianMarks 13y agoThe MtGox Bitcoin deserves to go to zero.
- sbolak 13y agoI feel bad for anyone that buys any of the MtGoxBTC right now.