Bitcoin Forum

I just went to the Bitfloor website and there is this message:

I am sorry to announce that due to circumstances outside of our control BitFloor must cease all trading operations indefinitely. Unfortunately, our US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of USD deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past. As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds.

Over the next days we will be working with all clients to ensure that everyone receives their funds. Please be patient as we process your request.

- Roman
founder - bitfloor.com

Does anyone have any more info concerning this? 

maybe mt gox bought them out so they can be the only game in town?

No, but the writing have been on the wall for a long time. It's incredible that people don't see this. I've warned about this a long time ago. It's just common sense, there's been too much fuckups, eventually the fuckups accumulate and it all goes kaboom.

Isn't this the 2nd time they've shut down?

They got goxxxed?

This! ^^

It was hard enough for them to try to restart their business with a huge debt hanging over their heads that they were promising to repay with their profits.

An early company needs to be able to put their profit into the business for a while.

I liked BitFloor, they allowed for easy deposit through ING and paid you to exchange your funds. The only reason I did not sign up is knowing that they were in the hole and would likely never be able to make it.

It sucks since they really support Bitcoin and were trying to do the right thing by paying people back after the hack.

Was it them who tried hide losses/gamble with client funds ? I remember distinctly one exchange doing that, and I figured that was the end of trust for that exchange..

Bank of America is probably shutting down his account when they learned he was using it for bitcoin business.

I doubt Bank of America gives a fuck about Bitcoin. It's more likely the account was closed either because Bitfloor wasn't solvent or AML requirements became a headache. What Bitcoin needs is a strong financial player willing to build and support a professional infrastructure so people can buy bitcoins fast, safe and easy.

Maybe you're thinking about bitmarket.eu?

If anyone is looking for a new place to trade, please consider CampBX.  We will love to have you on our platform.

- Keyur

https://campbx.com/faq.php#fund-transfers

Um, no, banks absolutely DO give a fuck about bitcoin.

I like that it's local to me so if I need to physically go grab a tie I can :)

No, not really. At least, not in the way you think they are. I think they're amused and paying attention, but they're in no way threatened by BTC. It's not like BTC is competition to a bank at all until the idea that ALL currencies might some day be replaced by crypto-currencies - but even then, it's going to require some level of trust for depositors, since the idea of maintaining private keys and the relative inconvenience of BTC compared to the current USD system is confusing at best to the average consumer, who better to trust than your bank to handle the complexity of your bitcoins in the future?

Banks make money by lending cash against deposits. They don't care if deposits are in USD, seashells, grains of salt, or blind hookers, as long as they can lend out more than they take in (I think I might be the first person to come up with the idea of timesharing out blind hookers as a unit of currency...). They take deposits, lend it back out several times over, and pocket the interest. BTC is not a replacement for banking, it's just another vehicle to store value - and banks are really, really, really good at multiplying stored value.

Put it into another perspective: the entire market value of BTC as expressed in USD is about $1 billion right now. That's a large number, sure - but the number of deposits just insured by the US FDIC (not to mention other global bank systems) is $9,200 billion. And the amount of cash loaned back out on that is staggeringly higher. As in hundreds of trillions of dollars globally. BTC is a VERY small player in the "value storage and lending" business, and it's in no way a threat to the business models of traditional banks. (I haven't done a thorough analysis on investment banking, but I'm quite confident that adding another currency to the FOREX mix isn't going to revolutionize the global economy... it'll just make another payment method available, which will increase the number of transactions, which will increase arbitrage opportunities, and they make even more money.)

In time, banks will be looking at BTC as a potential source of revenue, not as something that needs to be quashed. It's a fallacy to believe that since the stated purpose of BTC is to be decentralized, that centralized entities will be unable to use it to their advantage. They're smarter than you think.

Can you add some way of quickly depositing cash into a trading account?

LocalTill was great because it was inexpensive and didn't involve Moneygram, but even if you could just get your platform added to the list of destinations BitInstant supports that would be a significant improvement.

Banks do not like a lot of ACH in / out. It does look like money laundering.

I just opened an account and Dwolla'd $1000 into it. I will update with my trading experience.

Right off the bat, I notice that there's no trade volume information, and the order book (depth table) has to be refreshed *manually* using the browser.

-- FK

From the looks of it, I believe they're aiming for the API traders. Looks fine to me, as I'm an API trader myself, and I'm moving cash to them next week to try them out as well... but you're right, without browser based trades being easier, they're going to very severely restrict their client base - it's just not browser-friendly.

It might prove to be helpful- the fewer users freaking out and clicking "cancel cancel cancel" or "buy buy buy" a million times per second might prove to be more then a benefit for the API traders. No harm in it being a niche organisation for only pros.

it would help liquidity, though... and that's pretty important for API traders (well, bot traders, anyway, but I assume most API traders are using automated trading scripts). Without new blood coming in buying or selling, the market will evaporate slowly to the exchange fees.

...and they don't want competition.

You think wrong. They're not that stupid. Maybe you are, but they aren't.

Wow. That got unnecessarily confrontational really fast. Did you want to discuss the points I made, or are you just going to leave your ad hominem sitting there without picking it up?

Now, to address the topic: Still waiting for ACH transfer. Bitfloor now shows my USD withdrawl request as completed ($0 available, $0 on hold) but it hasn't shown up in my pending banking transactions.

I'm going to leave it at ad hominem.

Got it. Unwilling/unable to defend your position. Good to know.

Unwilling to state the obvious to someone who can't see the obvious. Would you waste time explaining to someone that didn't think there was an internet that indeed such a thing existed?

If you can't see that a bank might be concerned about an alt-currency with a billion dollar market cap, you're an idiot.

Whatever, man - you're the one who brought it up, and when I made a counterpoint with a logic-based view, instead of engaging in anything resembling rational debate, you just threw a fit, took your marbles, and went home.

Related to topic: Still no ACH from Bitfloor pending at my bank. (Usually I see a "pending" transaction for ACH deposits, even when they're not actually going to settle the same day.) My bank processes ACH on Saturdays, so we'll see tomorrow if it shows up.

just an update on my return of funds: what had been a "processed" ACH withdrawal is now listed as "on hold". Given what they've publicly announced for a timeframe for delivery of their "check from the bank", I don't anticipate a refund until AT MINIMUM 5/1 (again... if ever)

Bitfloor has conducted business on a very professional level. You'll get your money.