Bitcoincharts at 2013-11-18 12:15

Something's wrong here. The "latest price" is far outside the bid-ask range. Did the market cross and lock up, or is this just Bitcoincharts being broken again?

Remember, mining is more than half over. More than half of the potential Bitcoins have already been mined. It's all uphill from here. Mining is not how you get into Bitcoin unless you have access to a wafer fab.

No.

Mt. Gox is almost irrelevant to Bitcoin at this point. Since they're not paying out USD (at all) or EUR (much), and only an idiot would deposit there, most of the "volume" there has to be the same money sloshing back and forth within Mt. Gox.

That's a problem local to Mt. Gox.  Legit exchanges where you can get money out don't have that problem.

That's a Litecoin commercial.

"Gold mining is getting too hard. Let's mine tin instead!"

This runup is clearly being driven by buying activity from China. BTC China is now the biggest exchange. Bitcoins provide a legal (more or less) way to convert yuan to dollars or euros. (This normally requires permission from the State Administration for Foreign Exchange.)

But why is the runup so fast? Possibly because there aren't enough dollars flowing into the Bitcoin exchanges to satisfy the demand from sellers in China. People in China who want to convert yuan to dollars or euros don't intend to stay in Bitcoins for long. But they don't care what the Bitcoin exchange rate is, only what the yuan-Bitcoin-dollar exchange rate is for the brief period they're in Bitcoins.

Hm.

 

One could have said the same thing about Bernie Madoff's fund right up to the bankruptcy.

That's it, exactly. This Bitcoin run-up looks like a rush to do just that before the People's Bank of China stops it.

A caution for users in China: if, at some point, the PRC decides that Bitcoin transfers in and out of China are undesirable, the Bitcoin protocol could be blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

That was back in May. Now, it's time to file a police report and get an arrest warrant for fraud and theft issued for Jered Kenna.

Tradehill ceased operations months ago and seems to have run off with customer funds.  If they owe you money, file a police report and get a warrant issued for Jared.

This is the point at which you file a police report for fraud.

It's someone in the US, and you have names and addresses.  They can be found and arrested.

There have been several Bitcoin banks. They've either been scams or they've been hacked.

I'd like to see a Bitcoin broker/dealer that was registered as a broker/dealer in a major country, with audits and customer insurance.

No, that's not the issue. The issue is that India, like China, has exchange controls on money. A legal way around those exchange controls is valuable.

Until 2012, India didn't tax gold imports. Now they do, at 10%. Hence gold smuggling. India has been tightening up their exchange controls lately, so if Bitcoin starts being used as a way to convert rupees to something more useful outside India, there will probably be Bitcoin controls.

China, on the other hand, is loosening their exchange controls. The economy in China is so strong they don't really need them.

You can look at Gox's transaction history. They do a few transactions a minute. In terms of transactions per minute, Gox is at the level of a busy fast food outlet.

Enough with the bullshit. Nobody has reported that a US bank has refused an incoming wire transfer from Mt. Gox. If there's a problem on the bank side (which is questionable; Mt. Gox has never offered any concrete proof of this) it's at the sending end in Japan.

Mt. Gox doesn't seem to be having any trouble getting wire transfers from the US. If some limits were being applied at the US end, there would be trouble sending to Mt. Gox from the US.

Enough with the conspiracy theories. Mt. Gox's troubles are due to Mt. Gox.

This has been going on for months. If Mt. Gox really wanted a high-volume banking arrangement, they would have found one by now. But they seem to find having excuses for non-payment more useful. This suggests they don't have the depositors' money.

Another arbitrage issue is that much of the current run-up is being driven by exchanges in China. But if you sell Bitcoins for yuan, it's hard to get the yuan out of the country or convert them into some other currency.  So you can't easily arbitrage between the yuan-only China exchanges and the ones in other currencies.

The rules under forfeiture law are tough. You may only have 60 days after the forfeiture.

Unless the court for good cause sets a different time, the claim must be filed: ...
(C) if notice was not published and direct notice was not sent to the claimant or the claimant's attorney" ...
If the property was not in the government's possession, custody, or control when the complaint was filed ... 60 days after process was executed on the property under Rule G(3).

It may already be too late to file against the Dwolla forfeiture. Talk to a lawyer.

If you want to do that, there are time limits on how long you can claim against a forfeiture. Get legal advice fast.

If you were to sue Mt. Gox in Delaware small claims court, and win (or they don't show up), you'd have a US judgement against them. (Mt. Gox created a legal presence in Delaware so they could register with FinCen. That provides an entity you can sue in Delaware.)

Then you can try to collect from funds the US Government is holding. According to Japanese law, if Mt. Gox is a Payment Services Agency, you own the money; you're not just a creditor of Mt. Gox. That puts you in a stronger position to claim against a forfeiture.  Again, get legal advice.