I'm getting the impression from the level of creative input and discussion regarding p2p exchanges and fiat-to-digital methods that we are getting quite close to a combination of systems that could prove to be the silver bullet on that one.  In particular are an idea from fellowtraveler being provisionally called BMOT and one proposed solution to the fiat -> digital fiat without trust problem even has a 10BTC bounty for anyone who can find fault with it!  It is the brainchild of bytemaster to be found here, having come out of BTCLuke's hot Primer for a P2P Distributed Exchange thread.

I'm guessing you're trolling and assuming you're implying here Bitstamp is the next to be scrutinised by the US authorities to see if there are any aspects of its business on US soil that are contravening any US laws so that those parts of it can be closed/seized by the authorities?

If this is true then it is excellent news because it makes the existing exchanges work harder to ensure they're compliant in the various jurisdictions in which they operate, reminds their users to limit their exposure to the exchanges on which they trade whilst keeping in the forefront of all of our minds how important it is to get decentralisation of exchanges operational by some means sooner rather than later.

PS. for anyone who hasn't come across 'SEC agent' the following quote sums up quite nicely what he/she's about:


Bless

Thanks for this chydenius.  An increase in off-exchange deals having an indirect effect on prices and volumes on multiple exchanges is certainly relevant to this.  What I'm finding absolutely fascinating last night/this morning are the vibrant discussions going on right now finding solutions to the p2p exchange problem.  In particular an idea from fellowtraveler being provisionally called BMOT and the numerous proposed solutions to the fiat -> digital fiat without trust problem.  One that may be of interest to those who like to try and find weaknesses has this morning been proposed with a 10BTC bounty.  It's here, having come out of BTCLuke's hot Primer for a P2P Distributed Exchange

In the meantime the volume differential between gox and bitstamp has fallen  off again after yesterday's brief 2:1, but not enormously considering the big jump in gox's volume yesterday.  Prices are nicely close though Currently it the picture looks like this:

Indubitably so - although I have not used bitstamp myself (I am not actively trading at the moment and all my recent purchases have been through LocalBitcoin contacts in London).

Oh, and let me use this reply as an excuse to update the bid price and volume comparison table:



I'm quite pleased despite mtgox's rejuvinated volume it only gained 10% over the day (whilst bitstamp vol reduced by the same amount) and the others also managed to stay within a stone's throw away from the gox price

Wow, I just read this whole thread.  First a massive thanks to Fellow Traveler not only for the work you're doing but also for patiently explaining these integrated concepts in various ways to help people with different partial-understandings understand it a bit better.

For me a question that has probably either been already replied to above that I missed or maybe something those more familiar with colored coins have dealt with already:  The weakest link seems to me to be fiat represented by colored coin.  Are we talking for instance about a generic GBP colored coin, in which case the system is as strong as its least trustworthy issuer, or about branded coins. e.g. if Max Keiser were to agree to put his name to coloured coins and I were to take cash to his representative who took it from me to keep it locked away until redeemed it would mean the people I'm dealing with would need to deem KeiserCoins as dependable?  I'm not saying this is necessarily a weak link in comparison with what we have already but from what I understand it is likely the weakest link in the proposed solution as is.  Have I got the gist of this aspect of it right or have I misunderstood something?

I'm loving the way the whole Open Transactions thing can work especially in conjunction with coins (bit, alt or colored) not even needing to sit on the servers and with the Bitmessage system.  I had not looked into either before this evening and the idea of combining them all with a means of compiling an order book of truly distributed and anonymous p2p system is just beautiful.

Thanks again

PS.  .75 btc sent your way (1NtTPVVjDsUfDWybS4BwvHpG2pdS9RnYyQ) towards bringing this to fruition quicker.  Someone above suggested OpenCoinInc might try to buy this out too.  May I request if you do get an offer and are tempted that you first give the community the opportunity to crowdfund a competing bid?

That's why I'm all in since a good couple of months now!  It was a bit painful to see the massive drop especially as I'd been selling some bitcoin for a friend at £168 but although I could in principle have doubled my bitcoins had my timing been perfect life is a lot less stressful with the decision already made.   And at least I don't get the 'doh, I've missed the boat' feeling at times like this

... or any other variation on the theme of manipulators and schemers  On the other hand it could just be volumes beginning to return to what was normal (especially considering a much higher proportion is now trading off gox) who were waiting for movement to trade.  There is no money to be made from a stagnant (stable) market so from a day trader's perspective it's movement that triggers market action.

Just off my own spreadsheet I'm afraid - so I can't do a feed for here with live data.  But the data it's scraped from is on bitcoincharts.com/markets.

Seeing as you asked, here it is at current vol/price



And whilst I'm here, here are two more charts I like - and these ones, though static images here, link through to the equivalent live chart on bitcoincharts.com:

This is one using weekly figures with a log scale and a moving weighted average which virtually wipes out what seemed at the time on the micro level to be a massive drive up to $266 and back down.  In the bigger picture it matters not much!  Notice the massive drop in weekly volume since the peak whilst the price has happily plodded on and has now started up again.



The second zooms in to see the volume drop over the last three days of the volume decline followed by the most recent four days (today still having another 7 hours odd to run - bitcoincharts.com using gmt as their cutoff point):



Edited to replace my vol & bidprice image with one that has same data but is labelled

bitstamp not half mtgox anymore but it's certainly an healthier distribution of activity than we're used to - and those bid prices are still within a stone's throw too

It also means the volume being exchanged at gox represents a much higher volume overall than it used to.

The volume of mtgox is below 60% of total USD volume traded on the exchanges listed at bitcoincharts.com  in the last 24 hours whilst bitstampUSD is at 30% How cool is that?!  

The bid prices are closer than they've been in recent weeks too.

I know we're talking about low volumes but not as low as it may seem for those used to just going by gox volumes as an indication.  Ideally I'd like an indication of OTC and off-list exchanges such as Trade Hill too but I'm getting an impression our vulnerability to mtgox is finally beginning to diminish



Edit: to replace my vol & bidprice image with one that has same data but is labelled

First an overview chart I like with weekly weighted moving averages showing the 'massive' spike as a blip we're in the process of healthily recovering from.  At the same time it's showing the spectacular volume drop week on week that appears to have very little bearing on the price.



Next zooming in on the last six days I just like how neat that is...



And finally, the most exciting for me is the change in volume balance and catching up of prices by the three closest exchanges to mtgox, bitstamp in particular currently at over a quarter of the total USD exchange value on bitcoincharts.com



Assuming more than a tiny amount of what was mtgox's volume has gone off exchange altogether to OTC or whatever and that it's currently only 62% of the overall volume the comparative low volume of mtgox from before may not be as drastic as it may first appear.

OK, I'm liking what I'm seeing here this morning.  Even btce bid price is gradually catching up and the balance of volumes between the currencies beginning to look a lot more healthy

Can one 'second' a red card?

"What's the tipping point for this thing to really catch on?"

My answer:  For it to be big enough that the media have a wide enough pool of people who can talk competently enough for them not to be calling on Amir all the time!

No, it's just that some of us prefer more a considered use of words than just slapping them around.  The pity is that you actually add quite constructively to the discussion now and then otherwise I'd just have you on ignore all the time but it's a high price to pay to read through this kind of stuff to get to the odd useful bit.

I wasn't at the convention and of course there were people there paying for their service to get noticed and bigging up their own products and services but from what I understand of the videos and write-ups I've seen it was very much about what is happening.  So if someone says 'We added 1,900 in April' what do you want to 'see'?  Their proof?  If someone says 'We have partnered with x and are providing this service' do you actually need to try out the service for yourself before you believe they're doing it?

That to me looks like more a cynical response than a sceptical one.  Whether or not you believe there is reason to be hopeful for the future of Bitcoin there is plenty of evidence that some people do.  In which case can you not see it would be a reasonable to expect such people to want to meet to talk about what's new and to be in the company of like-minded people?

And regarding your wanting to 'see' what's happening if the price is less of an indicator where are you expecting to be 'seeing' evidence that things are happening?

Closer than when at its biggest but it's been closing to under 4 a few times in the last day so I don't know whether this is closing still or whether it's just floating within the same range.



I do think a gap as big as this will act as a brake on any big upward movement on gox - and maybe that's not such a bad thing

Another report of no change:  Low volume & diverse bid prices across the exchanges.

 

Anybody know if there's a corresponding (or any significant) increase in off-exchange trades such as on OTC/ LocalBitcoins etc.?

I think you've got it the wrong way round.  For the average Joe to have $20 worth of bitcoins and for it to be accepted in all the places you're saying the price will have had to have increased enormously.  You've probably seen similar calcs before but give you an idea, given 21m bitcoins divided by pop. usa would mean 66.3 mBTC p/p (assuming all mined, none lost, all non-USA citizens sold).  For 66.3 mBTC to be worth $20 1 BTC would be worth $3,316.

This assumes your 'average Joe' holds an average amount.  However, given many worldwide are also interested, given there'll likely be fewer than 3/4th, given that many of those are either put away for posterity or lost and given that a small number are likely to hold a huge quantity, for the 'average Joe' to carry about $20 worth a single bitcoin is likely to be much much higher.

There are many many steps between where we are today and the scenario you describe.  I don't see the benefit of looking at bitcoin as unsatisfactory today simply because those steps have not been taken yet.  More important is that the steps taken so far are leading to the next steps and it is here I believe we have significant momentum.

What if it drops $1000 in a day? - oh but wait, it can't!, and though I really do get what crumbcake was getting at invoking Pascal's Wager it is a fact only one side has a limit to its movement in a day.

Again, in principle I see your parallel with inventions lying un-built and unused for millennia yet it takes some stretch of the imagination to put Bitcoin in this category.  I see it as closer to the steam train having been built and refined and tested and is now pulling a long mixed consist of goods and savers and speculators.  We may well have hit a bit of a hill that is a struggle for the engine at this stage of its development but there's a lot of momentum behind it and I doubt this will be its nemesis.  But even if it did fail to make the crest of the hill (or the next) its unmaking is by now impossible.  Whether it's Bitcoin or something else the cat is well and truly out of the bag.  There'll be no languishing for millenia for the idea and technology of stateless decentralised money.

And my last query is regarding fear of permabulls.  OK, I get it was at least partially in jest but my question is how can someone who, based on a decent understanding of the concept and its implications, is as convinced as Its About Sharing is be a threat to Bitcoin?  There's a hard core of believers in this technology who would ride the price down to one cent if that's what happened - providing the technology still does as it ought our net worth loss might smart but the hope in the idea would not be smothered.  Holders like that are surely very healthy for Bitcoin.

There is a danger that those looking for an excuse to believe Bitcoin is a get-rich-quick scheme will feed from such positive writings and we probably should be wary of their affect on the market as they alternate between buying without understanding what they're getting into and disillusioned selling when in disbelief they see price can go down too!  But that's not the fault of the permabulls.

Careful with those kind of sentiments Hawker

Last time I dared make such a suggestion when religion found its way onto the old wall thread I got asked if I lived in Communist China and accused of trying to suppress free speech!!

On the other hand there was so little going on I clicked 'Unignore' on Coinseeker's post only to find his is the most informative of the bunch!  Wonders never cease