Bitcoin Forum

Am I the only one here thinking that the MtGox hack is actually good for Bitcoin?

The very fact that it's holding its value after something like this, having apparently plummeted down to $0.01, indicates to me that people do subjectively see 'intrinsic' value in Bitcoin, and it has resilience. One of the biggest fears I've seen is that it's purely built on 'nothing' it's like a house of cards that can come crashing down at any moment. Well now, in its first big month out in the wild, it's been through two crises and still it bounces back. There's definitely something substantial there. I really do think that every time it gets hit and bounces back, it proves its resilience and ultimately, after the FUD has cleared, will find itself in a stronger position.

What makes you think the value has held? Most exchanges have suspended trading.

It's almost a guarantee that price will decrease due to this. However, this effect shouldn't last too long, and the market should absorb this unforunate event and get back on track in a week or two.

flug
yea, indeed u right. But nevertheless the impact on Bitcoins rep is huge.
btw, it is a good time to buy coins, for those who missed the train, but unfortunetly i do not have $ left...

TradeHill seemed to be holding until it suspended.

By holding, I didn't necessarily mean hold a price of $17. I meant hold any value at all, proving it does have 'substance' like gold in people's minds rather than just being vapour.

I agree. If we survive this, and I think we will, we will be able to wholeheartedly laugh at all the doom criers. How could it get worse then what we've allready gotten through.

the emails in the database might lead to spam - something interesting might come out of it, or just a whole lot of spam. Also, you can tell who the early adopters are.

There will always be bumps in the road for new technologies , this is just one of ours. We will bounce back and be better than ever. If you check out the market charts you'll see this is just following the last years patterns anyway.

More importantly, the fundamentals of bitcoin have held fast. The hack wasn't against the p2p network or against bitcoin itself... They had to go after the weakest link. We're very much in the infancy of both bitcoin and its ancillaries, such as exchanges. This is nothing but teething pains.

Now, if someone had been able to compromise the network itself, which IS the intrinsic value of a bitcoin, then it would've meant trouble.

This, to quote a line in a famous movie, is a speeding ticket.

It's a nice little test, and if it doesn't kill btc it will only make it stronger and maybe a good decentralized trading platform can emerge of it, who will tell. We knew the weakest spot in the whole system and think most people knew this could happen so it won't be that big of a deal for bitcoins in the longer run, maybe shorttime we will see a dip.

Thank god for mentioning that. I mean how many times have p2p networks been attacked, yet risen against it?

More exchanges will pop up this is just starting. In my personal opinion Mtgox is dead.

The $1000 withdraw limit will help save them. There will be millions of $$$'s stuck there and BTC will be too cheap to pass up.
Long live MtGox!   :D

I think it will be good for Bitcoin. There's still lots of people who don't know what Bitcoin is, and they'll read more news/blog articles and think, "What is this Bitcoin stuff?" Some will be interested and look into buying some, and eventually start trading with Bitcoins as well.

A normal hack wouldn't necessarily have killed mtgox, but since all signs point to an infantile SQL injection, I don't see therm surviving long term. People will try and finish their business with them at respectable rates, then go.

If the end result is a partial exodus from MtGox to other exchanges then it's a great thing.  Even MtGox acknowledged that having one monolithic exchange was not a good thing.

Yeah the more exchanges the better. And don't forget the importance of the volumes on the bitomat (PLN) exchange at times like these in holding stability.

Even if this is very bad for Mtgox, it could be a net good for Bitcoin.

A) Diversifies trading across exchanges and provides opportunity for more to spring up

B) More news about Bitcoin (even negative news is news... worst thing that can happen is obscurity)

and if bitcoins used in illegal activity are traced back to you, theres some plausible deniability.

I've been working on a decentralized exchange for a couple of months now. I'm very close to an initial release. Keep an eye out for a big announcement in a week or two.

Here is the code so far: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange

I think it's only good because it will force a rebalancing of bitcoin exchange markets and MtGox's monopoly.
But it's very bad because it's a heavy blow to the reputation and credibility of bitcoins in general in the eyes of the general public (who mostly have never even heards of bitcoins yet, but they will eventually). It will make widespread adoption much more difficult and longer, because with this and the recent robbery and the bubble burst before that, people are going to think this is far too risky and unproven for "ordinary" people to invest their hard-earned money in. And without widespread acceptance bitcoins are not going to keep rising in value significantly (like they've done in the past, solely due to people buying them), nor become the world-changing usefull tool they could be.
For me this event is slightly reassuring, because it makes me think that even if the age of quickly rising bitcoins may be over or a long way away, whatever comes bitcoins will not crash or disappear completely, thanks to a core of bitcoin cultists / fundamentalists / enthusiasts / whatever you wanna call them, who believe in bitcoins because of ideological / political / personal reasons and not because of economical / rational reasons, and will continue their support of it no matter what because of that, so the degree of certainty that I won't lose all the money I invest into this has risen for me (though I still wouldn't call bitcoins predictable or completely safe).