Bitcoin Forum

Someone just bought 25,000 coins on Gox? Anyone got info to share?

They probably want to get their money out of gox and have no choice in the matter? Buy BTC and transfer out?

Maybe, but I'd think anyone with that much money at stake would be working with Gox to get the money transferred our rather than taking a $250k haircut. Unless they have some inside info that Gox's collapse is imminent.

the proper question is not: how many are bought, but: how many are left?

parabolic rise v2.0
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ__TF7uHkOF2Le1zxx94j_jxyxmwsIZCJ3YB6qDfCOwahCMphj

There are a lot of rich people who might want to get their cash out of Gox as the bank situation is iffy. The easiest way to do this - and no, it's not arranging a wire transfer and waiting 3 1/2 weeks - is to buy BTC and transfer it out.

Once these people transfer their BTC out of Gox to another exchange, you might assume, with your simple human mind, that they will immediately think, "Ok, time to sell it all back to USD now."
But come on now, they didn't get rich by making the least profitable decision at every opportunity - in fact, they do the opposite. Hence the richness. They think "Hey, me and all my rich buddies just boosted the price like crazy, just getting our BTC out. Might as well have some fun while we're at it. Mad profit$ yo!"

This is why we don't have Gox buys immediately translating to exactly the same volume of Bitstamp and CampBX sales, and why we have upward price movement. Even getting money out of Gox (via buying BTC and transferring) is just another way for the whales to make even more money.

And of course, it shows quite clearly the "intrinsic value" of BTC. If you have gold in a vault in Idaho and you're worried about seizure or lack of access, or even counterparty risk, you can't click a button and transfer it to a vault in BC or into your own vault. BTC has value specifically as a highly transportable medium of exchange that solves both the proof problem and the counterparty risk problem common with other moneys. Only downside is that it requires electronic infrastructure. In a post-apocalyptic world of rolling blackouts and EMPs it would only be of marginal utility, but would still function so long as the necessary infrastructure was available and functioning. But this is why most of us (hopefully) don't see cryptocurrency as "the one" solution to all the world's monetary troubles - it is just one of numerous, equally ingenious solutions.

It is only a $250k haircut if they immediately sell at another exchange. If they move the coins to another exchange and just wait for the price to rise they could get out without losing any money.

waiting a few weeks is just not risky enough is it. their no fun to be had.

None of this explains why Bitstamp, CampBX and btc-e all recorded the same magnitude jump simultaneously

Sorry dude, shouldn't you be doing this as the price goes up?

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/carlton-dance-gif.gif?w=320

:)

That is the way arbitrage works. The person who bought all those coins had to buy them from other people. Some of those people have fiat sitting at other exchanges. When their bitcoins are sold on Gox they buy the same number of coins at other exchanges at the lower price for an instant profit.

Yes it does. Those are FOOLISH attempts at arbing. That crap is temporary and will come to an end soon. They will regret trying to arb

Arbitrage

Why is it foolish?

then this may be what cause the jump

http://www.coindesk.com/tradehill-halts-trading-due-to-iafcu-operational-and-regulatory-issues/

Are you unaware of Gox's problems?

I'm holding some coins right now, but I'm not feeling too good about it. Trying to figure out exit points... I don't think this price can be propped up for too long. No way I'm selling on Gox, though, even if I can take 12% profit right off the top.

I've reduced my footprint in BTC by nearly 75% during this rally based on similar feelings.

lol its the bank itself in trouble?

Sure, that's what's causing the arb opportunity. That's doesn't mean it's foolish to take advantage of it.

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

Or perhaps it is extremely foolish. We will only see in hindsight. It's prudent to recognize that Gox is a) losing massive market share, b) facing deepening regulatory/compliance issues across a plethora of jurisdictions, c) facing an unofficial banking blockade (this situation is eerily similar to the banking issues that crushed the online poker market) where banks would have to be beyond desperate to go anywhere near Gox, and d) that a significant portion of Gox's yearly revenue was recently seized (not frozen) by the US government -- which direction the USG heads from here is difficult to say. $5 million ain't no drop in the bucket.

The $2.1 million seizure on June 19 was one day before suspending US withdrawals. Right? Considering how massively incompetent Gox has been to date, I've become more open to the prospect that they made no prior contingency plans for USD payment processing (up to and including seizures). The amount of money they have kept sitting in US bank accounts is sickening.

They could possibly be buying because they think bitcoin is a good investment.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

"Holiday" arrangements to Tokyo, check!

What people seem to assume is that Mt Gox's back story has any credence at all: even if they did start out as a genuine Magic the Gathering trading site that just so happened to end up as the biggest cryptocurrency exchange out there, the credibility of that transformation is missing a key step in the narrative. At some point, a very big fish in Japanese power broking got involved, they could not have got such a web platform (16 major currencies?) to where it is and continue it without that kind of cooperation. I'd be very concerned about Japanese regulatory investigations into Gox's business, but there have been precisely zero such forays, not even a hint. Whoever their backer is, they're significant members of the global political food chain. They're not letting their massive gamble of a venture go down in a hurry, or without a fight. I wonder exactly what sort of turbulence this outfit has really caused behind closed doors up until now.

Anyone who really believes this is just the natural evolution of a gaming card website is excruciatingly naive. It's not going away in the short term.

I said it's not foolish, with conditions. But you conveniently ignored the brunt of my point. Sure, the situation you paint sounds like a wet dream, but if this were happening on any decent scale, inter-exchange spreads would have ceased long ago.

Re obtaining a bank account, unless things have changed, you need to register for an alien registration card, which requires Japanese residency. I've seen sources that say one year -- others that say there are exceptions with certain banks with certain documentation. But establishing residency in a foreign country to obtain money you are already entitled to is a ridiculous hurdle and it's funny that people illustrate this as reasonable.

Also, does the currency exchange issue (i.e. Gox exchanges USD-JPY rather than its bank) affect money transmission issues? A state-by-state look at money transmitter regulations suggests that currency exchange may carry compliance concerns that Gox is not in a position to handle. Do you have any information about this, or are we just assuming it is a non-issue?

whats so hard about exchanging your fiat into 16 different currencies? cant you go down to your own local bank and do that? assuming the same people run mtgox if/when it was a mtg site means very little other than maybe the operators saw a more profitable business model.

I know what you said and I wanted to point out that your "conditions" can be circumvented.

But check this thread if you haven't already: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276610.0  -- lots of answers.

Since Japanese locals are reporting to have withdrawn their money in JPY, I assumed it's a non-issue. Furthermore, because of their business involving several currencies, I again, assumed, that they went through the necessary validations for currency exchanging or their banks do it for them.

Are you sure about that?
MtGox USD -> JPY Bank (3% exchange rate fee + wire fee)
JPY Bank -> US Bank (3% exchange rate fee + wire fee)
US Bank -> Other Exchanges (wire fee)

They might be able to tighten the spread a little bit, but not too much more than it has been.

Yeah, non-option. You can't just become a Japanese local with a bank account without establishing residency and documentation with the local registrar.

Don't assume anything with Gox. They had $5 million seized over the past few months for dodging regulations. They're fucking buffoons. And we know about their current banking situation...

To some extent you're right, but I think you're understating the effect on a 10-15% spread.

Actual NET purchases look to be only 15k initially with about 5k coins then coming out of limbo to reduce the total change to 10k, that's the amount that the BTC depth has dropped by (from 50k to 40k) and that drop in depth is what causes prices to rise.  Trading volume has normally been twice the amount of actual depth decline in all of these whale purchases.

At this rate only 4 more large whale purchases of this size will EMPTY GOX and at the rate they are occurring this will take just 2 weeks.

People are really really being lulled into a false sense of security by looking at these rising numbers, people need to realize that Gox and by association BTC is becoming ILLIQUID and that is fatal, the only value of BTC is that it is liquid.

Asks dropped from 56,000 to 38,000.

So, over 20k of market order buys, somewhere under 5k of sells into the walls.

 

There is no profit, instant or delayed, unless they can move fiat out of gox, and into their own hands. Gox deposits are not insured. There is no arbitrage, there is only gambling on the fate of gox.

they did pay up the customers when there was a giant leak on GOX!

That is a hilarious example of classic conspiracy theorizing. As a rule, conspiracy theories must attribute a near-omnipotent amount of unchecked power to some supernaturally competent and all-knowing antagonist.  Applying this to an outfit as clearly amateurish and out of their depth as the Mt Gox crew (bless them, I wish them well, but really...) is just laughable.

Presumably their long, documented history of very public mistakes, blatant security breaches, poor technical performance under pressure, operational front-end and interface that looks like it was hacked together by some version of Dreamweaver from the 90s, legal s&*tstorms involving seizure of huge chunks of operating revenue, and near strangulation by the financial industry today is all part of their master plan!

1. stumble ass-backwards into an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
2. f*&k up publically almost every step of the way, relying on the fact that you were first on the scene and have a near-monopoly to push you through your "growing pains"
3. fail to make even basic steps towards operational competency, run afoul of the U.S. government, have your millions of casually strewn-about millions of dollars in a sketchy online financial conduit service seized, and lose not just monopoly but your ability to provide the basic services of a market to most of your customers
4. ???
5. Profit!

Oh man, I have not laughed so hard in a long, long time.

But they have been raking in bunches of money from the commissions, why didn't they pay somebody to fix all the glaring problems? It must be some sort of plot, they have remained just good enough to keep the #1 volume spot, thereby holding all of bitcoin down from its true potential!

Once out, they will then deposit into BitStamp. taking advantage of arbitrage. Some people just don't know how the Stock Market works.  ::)

The "People want money out of Gox" is a load of rubbish

Get on the train fella's.

Anyone have any idea why the price jumped yet again?

All fiat starts to jump in. Nobody wants to be left behind.

you fools ... people in the EU can also do SEPA Euro transfers out of gox....  it is only the dollar based accounts that need to convert...

Man, do I regret cashing out $5000 yesterday!
Still, needed the the money. Just how long can one wait, eh?

The network seems to jumping by leaps and bounds everyday, but just today it exploded some 30% from 600 TH to 800 TH. Jesus...

Anyone know if this is ASICminer turning on some massive number of new hashers, or what?

I would guess it is an asic company using community pre order money to build their own farm and then ship once the easy money has been made.

Likely a tag team effort from the 100TH/s MegaBigPower mine and 200TH/s GigaHashIO ramping up their hash hulks. Will ASICMiner pool become uneconomical and phase themselves out though?  :o

BFL has been shipping OODLES of Jalapenos and 60GH Singles. They've flown through the 3 weeks of orders in a matter of a single work week. They probably are arriving in a steady fashion. I know I just got mine yesterday as a July 10th order, and they claim they're up to July 22nd already.

Also, while Im here, can someone explain to me why CampBX or others typically have BTC cheaper than Mtgox? What is preventing people from just buying CampBX and then selling Mtgox almost instantly?

After FBI seized 5.8M USD from mtgox, I doubt they are still solvent enough to cash out 25000 BTC in USD.

unless GOX is buying coins from bitstamp, etc., selling those coins at their inflated prices.  they can probably still cash withdrawal fiat to their own domestic bank in japan.

Nobody spends money with deflating prices, anyone?

I'm not exactly sure how it's done, but I think it somehow involves a second person acting as the liaison between the two exchanges. Then, when the lower priced exchange rises, money is pulled out and put in the other exchange that has also risen the same exact percentage, thus not losing anything during the transfer. Soon, though, Mt Gox starts rising again, whereupon, say, at a 10% increase, once again money is pulled out and put back into Bitstamp, or maybe even a lesser used exchange to somehow cloak the traders intent/identity, for nobody wants to be caught red-handed practicing such a practice.

I hope my description of arbitrage helps those that weren't aware of how it works.

Happy trading!

I have heard this "logic" several times. In the business economics course my lecturer said it too, he even called everyone idiots for spending money during the deflation.

However, this is a very flawed mindset. Are you really so greedy that you're willing to starve because your money could be worth more tomorrow? Also, in the case of bitcoin, one can never know when the trend reverses so buying stuff during an uptrend is actually a wise thing to do.

A purchase of 161 coins on CampBX increases the price by over $11

Professors of economics, economic experts, pundits, and such have had their chance, multiple times, and have repeatedly proven themselves idiots and their theories idiotic. Only an idiot would take them seriously after everything we've seen in the past 50 years. Even those who profited - especially them - don't take the mainstream econimic theories seriously.

The fundamental error made by the inflationists is that they conflate money with demand. In reality, demand is the goods and services the buyer brings to the market, and supply is the goods and services the seller brings to the market. Money is just the oil to smooth out differences in many to many trades and time preferences.

deflation is a long term thing. sharp increases in the price are just as likely to be a trap as a legitimate long term movement. this means there is plenty of reason to buy things when the price is rising. you get more stuff for the money you invested. i bought amnesia the dark decent for 0.02btc and im feeling pretty good about it =)

Right, and the other side of the coin: We have no problem buying bitcoins when the price is rising.

Ah yes, the stock market. Keep buying and selling those BTC shares in accordance with established stock market technical analysis.

When do you think the shares will be split?

 ::)

Bitcoin comes pre-split. I've long referred to prices as being in millions of satoshis rather than fractions of bitcoins.

I was having fun with Phinneus' obviously sarcastic (judging by the rolling-eyes smiley) referral to the stock market as if it had anything to do with Bitcoin.

My point was that the Bitcoin (or any other crypto-currency) market is different from previous established markets like stocks, commodities, metals, and forex, although obviously there are many similarities.

While market manipulation is as old as history, the small size and low liquidity leave it more vulnerable.

It's a lot easier and cheaper to move the price up or down than to corner the market on onions.

Actually, I brought a new computer and it didn't come with sarcastic tags or a smiley button. Seriously, I've yet to take a screenshot with it because I don't know which button to push without Googling it. It took me a week to figure out the mouse pad--by accident--so that I no longer have to touch the screen to do stuff. Ironically, the main reason for purchasing this damn thing is so that I would have that ability, now I don't use it.

Yes, I was being sarcastic with my two previous posts, insinuating that one could buy high and sell low, but make it up in volume. I figured if it was good enough for The Polish Maverick  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Stupak)to remove the zeros from the roulette wheels, the sound advice should carry over to bitcoin investing.

It may be a lot easier and cheaper to move the price up.  Down is a different story.

To think,another 25,000 buy would put us at $200.

To think, someone is trying to put it there  ...
Motive ... profit perhaps  ??

Produce an up trend and then sell.

But you never know when the price will stop going up, so it is a good idea to spend some now before the price crashes.

It is just like when the price droped to ~ $70 just a little bit ago everybody was saying "only an idiot would be long bitcoins now, sell them while you can!"

$coin = USD
Bernake believes, according to a speech of his, that his monetary policy is somehow just and distributes $coins evenly. In reality, with inflation, the new $coins is distributed to the few. In a deflationary coin, new value is distributed proportionally to all holders. Still not just, think of someone just starting a family who have used all his or her $coins, but it is better.

It also worth adding that lenders in this case bear no risk whatsoever. Most of slaves will take the game seriously and work hard to create wealth and give it to the lender, interest included. And if they don't - no problem. Just take whatever they bought using your funny money, and don't deal with them further.  And keep telling people how you don't get something for nothing in life  :D

Wow, did we go off-topic here...!

Off topic - yes - but: I wish people would talk about debt money, not money as debt. We have base money (notes and coins) and debt money.

The "money as debt" is the ghost of past profligacy coming to haunt us all. It's not currently "real", because the central banks are treating it like a current account overdraft agreement with no terms of repayment. As it stands, nation states can barely afford the interest payments on these loans (aka the euphemistic "sovereign bonds"). But as the conventional wisdom about overdraft facilities goes, what happens when the bank does decide it wants the overdrawn money returned? They are likely to request it whenever they are endangered, and things are looking a little tipping point-ish.

irony: did you just say debt money? /irony
Or did you argue against the naming of the concept?