We don't know that.  Some are saying key-logger monitoring since May is a more likely explanation.  I don't know but it's too early to say for sure.

If anything, given that they can't do anything with them, surely the value of our holdings are 'safer' now because the risk of that lump of bitcoins hitting the exchanges has been eliminated for some time!

It will be interesting to see if they change the rules (the old rulebook has already been taken off their website  http://www.justice.gov/criminal/afmls/pubs/pdf/policy-manual-2013.pdf‎) so that they can keep their haul for the longer term.  My preference is that they'd dump them in one hit tomorrow though that's not going to happen!  I'm not that comfortable with that lot holding so many of our beloved coins!

You're a braver man than I!  I did a tiny little experiment with trading early on and decided since it is a zero sum game and I'm not confident I can  be among the few who gain overall in the longer term (v. just holding) I am long-since resigned to inaction other than when buying or occasionally little spends/sells.

But the exchanges do need liquidity so given you're not giving up I'll wish you the best

Oh man, sorry to hear that!

You thinking of waiting and hoping this is not the last of it (my guess is 25% chance in the next few days it will go lower than this morning's low) or swallow your losses and get back in kinda now-ish?

They may just be hiding behind a hedge ready to jump out and gloat if this recovery isn't the last of it!  More a spectator myself than a speculator (being generally a buy, sell/spend small occasionally and do nothing on the wild swings man) the volume and size of this morning's drop is such that I'm not convinced it is the end.

However, although I'm watching the value of my holding go up and down by crazy numbers I'm more entertained by the show than concerned

Is your challenge to see how many ignores you can acquire?  Well let me help you out with one more

Seriously, what do you think you are contributing to the conversation by just repeating yourself with a number you've plucked out of thin air irrespective of what the market does or what anyone says?  You may as well not be reading any posts (ah, I guess you're not), just replying to some at random with the same 120 message!  Well done

Funny  Though if you're serious and that fickle you are probably better off out of this market.  I always saw you as smarter than that - a permabull based on the sound principles of Bitcoin.  What happened to 'Even if it is only me and a few friends that have them whilst the rest of the world abandon Bitcoins and they are worth fractions of cents we'll keep them so we can use them as poker chips'?  Yet on the basis of a pretty pattern on a chart at 'the right scale' you have the confidence to sell all??!

Or maybe you're just spreading FUD to give you time to acquire more fiat to buy more cheaper?

Ah well, each to his own...

Edit:  OK, Now I see you played troll for lols   It's funny, when someone does something I consider to be very out of character I question most of all my ability to be a judge of character.  I am pleased in this instance at least I was not that wrong!

You seriously think this 'techie and his friends and family' had enough to sell to cause this magnitude of correction?!

I've had mine (one 60 and one 30) for a couple of weeks now but the fans are so loud I have nowhere to put them so they've just been sitting in a corner at work awaiting an appropriate location as the difficulty sweeps up.  Do you seriously think you have a chance of getting your money back by now?  I was thinking I'd be lucky to get the value of my import tax back but overall I'm glad my money wasn't with the one that went under and I do have some nifty bits of kit that I can plug in and participate in the bitcoin underlying network - which was mainly what I was excited about in the first place /off topic

Though not an economist I'm not convinced what you are describing is called a liquidity trap, nor can I see how a limited available amount of bitcoins in circulation diminishes the 'network effect'.  Would you care to elaborate?
 

At first consideration I can't see how money out of circulation can 'cause speculative boom and bust cycles'.  Are you suggesting fear of hoarders dumping feeds busts?  Surely if these nasty hoarders/long-term-speculators/savers selflessly did something with their coin so that they are in circulation, after the adjustment in price we'd be subject to the same cyclic upward and downward pressures - and we would be forever fearing someone new isn't going to come in and hoard loads (thus exposing us to the same supposed problems).

Can't we just accept it is going to go up and down quite drastically for some time because it is very small and someone with a reasonable amount of money can move the market quite significantly?  That's just the way it is until 'market cap' is much much higher - and in order to get there the value has to rise - and due to human nature it IS NOT going to rise nice and smoothly to provide the ideal adoption-for-transactions circumstances you desire.  It is simply what it is!

Of course it is Mah, of course it is!  ... and Ripple is going to the moon right?!!

I'm thinking you've got a rather polar viewpoint there.  The world isn't split into two neat groups, one of which is geeks who know all about bitcoin and are already involved to the extent they will be and the other is 'mom and pop' who understand nothing and would not touch it.  

Of the geeks who may well understand enough of the underlying technology to understand how it works many I suspect would not get involved, or not with much money for some time because they don't understand the economics or potential economics of it and don't know whether it is a fad that will fade with everybody who is left's money in it.  This thing takes time to get to understand enough for an increase in confidence that it has at least a chance of going somewhere long term.  And this increase in understanding/confidence takes time and the tendency and amount to get involved with it increases incrementally.

Of the mom and pops, I talk a fair bit about bitcoins to non-geeks who, as time goes by, as Silk Road doesn't crash it, as the 'last bubble' turns out not to have popped at all but just to have partially deflated for a while, are interested and may be more inclined to get involved - or to get more involved.

I am not saying some whales may just come along and take the heat out of this but they also risk being out-whaled.  I'm not saying this growth or where we've got to today is sustainable nor that as a consequence of what I'm saying that it won't but I would not be surprised, with things having stayed relatively stable for some time, that we do some 'catch-up increase for some time before it becomes a frenzy proper.  I'm actually hoping it won't and that some whales will at some point do their sacrificial selling to calm the buying down.  Time alone will tell

I suspect the potential rise in value of Bitcoin is a primary if not the only reason for many jumping on board in the first place but jumping on board requires learning something and that something that is learned in my experience and in that of many I've spoken to, tends to increase confidence that this thing has a future.

I also suspect the mentality of those who were interested last time round but did not participate are not the light/wishful-thinking/ignorant hands that bought with expectation of an easy return then panicked and sold.  Even from the little information we have here to make an assessment of the potential impact of these people I'd guess they're more impressed, not by the fact it went up so far last time but that it didn't crash and burn afterwards and that after a few months of relatively stable recovery, looks like it is going up again.

Personally, I am a lot more confident now than at the April rally that the serious downside risk i.e. price close to zero is dissipating by the day.  Where it goes in the meantime is anyone's guess - my guess for the time being being up!

Though I tend to avoid feeding trolls I will reply to this post and see the tone of any reply before clicking the ignore button:

If Bitcoin takes off on the longer and larger scale an inevitable consequence is that early holders (that's us folks) will become very wealthy.  I am not one that defends the 'righteousness' of this, claiming that all the smart, early, risk-embracing folk that did jump/are jumping on board and participate in its growth have 'earned' or 'deserve' the scale of increase in the value of our holdings just as I don't believe landowners who happen to be sitting on a plot in an area whose popularity goes through the roof have 'earned' their increase in wealth.  But it happens - and has happened for centuries - until something changes to prevent it from happening.

As an aside I happen to believe in the case of land a land value tax is a just means of ensuring those who play a role in making a location more popular (businesses, the police, providers of public transport, newcomers and all productive people in that locale) also reap some of the reward.  In contrast I don't believe Bitcoin savers/'hoarders' do any harm because it in no way limits those who arrive late to the party from using it to its potential so I don't believe a means should be found to 'redress' the extreme increases in wealth from having got in early.  It doesn't mean to say (and maybe this is one of the things you're hinting at) that governments and/or central banks and/or today's wealthy won't take steps to prevent this transference of wealth from happening.  This is a potentially interesting debate.

However I would recommend if you want to learn something - and there are many smarter than me that frequent these pages from whom a lot can be learned - as opposed to shouting generalities and conspiracy theories I would recommend calming down and thinking what your concerns are before posting.  That way others are more likely to participate and learn from the exchange too.  Just a suggestion

I don't believe there is such a thing as a 'fair valuation' based upon 'fundamentals'.  There is an absolute minimum price that would be required so that the bitcoins in circulation (assuming all bitcoins mined to date minus those in lost wallets) were enough to facilitate today's day-to-day transactions.  My guess is that that is a tiny fraction of its current market value.  Everything above that is based on demand versus supply (new + old becoming available on the market) with every bitcoin saved/long-term-speculated reducing those available.  People's preparedness to pay a higher and higher price is based on their confidence (or lack thereof) of Bitcoin reaching anywhere near its potential.

Feel free to pick a 'fair valuation' of your choice and to act accordingly.  Nobody can say you're wrong, but neither can you really say somebody valuing it at a cent or a million dollars are wrong.

Looks like the BitStamp market is maturing now.  Even when stamp has been beating gox on volume on a slow market gox was taking the lead for big actions.  Now we just saw even for the dip caused by the china 80k dump more volume was traded in the 10mins follow-on on stamp (3.5k) than gox (3k).  Looking good

Thank you.  You just eloquently described what I've been thinking for months now.  Trying to compare bitcoin price to technology adoption curves is flawed for the very reason you point out.  If we take an extreme weighted weekly average (below for example WMA 60) it's a fairly smooth line but as you say, with price more closely aligned with confidence than with adoption, fits and starts and crazy rallies followed by sharp corrections are I would venture almost inevitable.

Bitstamp bid price now closer to gox price than to btce and cbx.  Stamp volume holding out nicely against gox too

Probably best in case it wasn't a joke that someone answers seriously but I'll use this as an excuse to quote the reply I liked the idea of...