Ahh, that explains why < 60,000 users manage to slow down traffic.

Could the 45k be the money mt gox has for withdrawls, and what you see on the monitor is the "change" being returned.

I don't really know how the whole "change" system works. Seems odd to me. If my hypothesis is right, that is how much btc mt gox has on their online server to pay people. They have more offline and secure.

They could at least do that, but they seem to really like dropping the ball.

I'm still going to trade at mt gox, and I've even deposited, but they are really bad at communication. I think they did a good job fixing everything, but really bad at talking about it.

Just a heads up to anyone thinking about installing this, I would not recommend it until it has been vetted. Installing anything bitcoin related it a good way to lose your bitcoins.

I deposited some money from dwolla, it has been a little over 30 minutes and no show so far.

EDIT: nvm, it made it right after I posted.

If he sells, (big if) he could always put them through a bitcoin mixer (like money laundering) before selling, trying to figure out which bitcoins went where could be made impossibly hard.

Anyway, who cares. No one here is invested in him staying anonymous.

The mt gox bitcoins can't be there yet. There needs to be two sets of confirmations before they'll show.

I suppose someone clever could have withdrawn from gox to their trade hill deposit account, and then they'll only have to wait for one set of confirmations, but we are still about 45 minutes away from anyone managing to get those sold.

Whats that? I can't here you... j/k

What is special about this day? You decided to start trolling?

How long do you think they'll delay trading?

I'm in.

Seconded. It there is even a tiny chance that prices swing, I want to make sure I'm there. If they gave 24 hours, there would be less chance of big swings and I'd be able to put in my orders ahead of time.

How hard is it to keep your flippin deadline?

This is kind of getting ridiculous.

Everything is fixed for me, thanks.

I was merely trying to drive home how small an amount $170 mil is.

And the piece you might be missing is that this isn't some pyramid scheme where the money would only come from people investing. Say a poker site open up that is as big as pokerstars but uses bitcoins. In that case, people will want bitcoins to _use_, not as an investment. Pokerstars generated > $10 billion in deposits a year (before the US restrictions). If that much money is trying to funnel itself through the bitcoins system, the price of a bitcoin will be huge.

And that is just one industry. There are thousands of industries that could benefit from bitcoin. Some less legal than others. If a couple catch on, there is a chance that the value of a bitcoin will be so huge we won't even think in terms of bitcoins anymore. But it is only a chance, and maybe a very slim chance. That slim chance is what is giving bitcoin its value right now.

First you overestimate by assuming that all mined coins are sold. I think 80%+ are kept. Rerun all those number with only a fifth the coins for sale.

Secondly, judging by the bids that got filled recent crash, there was millions of dollars worth sitting in open buy orders. There may be many millions more that just didn't get a chance to be involved in that trade. My point -- bitcoins are starting to become really big, and it has attracted some people willing to put some serious money down.

$170 million in 5 years is actually a really small market on a global scale. Small businesses make that much. For a comparison that might be close to home -- Dungeons and Dragons brings in $1 billion a year. And yet, very few people actually ever spend any money on it. M:TG doesn't release their stats, but people have estimated it could be greater than $5 billion a year.

So if bitcoins only become as big as magic the gathering (which, lets face it, not many people have heard of), we may see $25 billion in the next 5 years. By your simplistic calculations, that would put the price of a bitcoin at > $3,000.

Mt gox has mentioned updating the backend, I hope it involves changing the way this all works. No one was able to get a buy order in during the crash because it was all "one order" being executed. Even with such a huge sell, I don't think it would have made it to $0.01 is people had been able to buy. I know I would have thrown everything I had at it as soon as it went under $5. I think enough people would have been there to keep it above $1.

I guess it all depends on how much cash people have in their mt gox accounts.

We should going door to doors and saying "Have you heard the good news... about bitcoins!"

My apologies for suggesting it is a scam without further evidence. I look forward to hearing more details.

How would the back find someone trustworthy people to loan to? I suppose they could have some USD in escrow and have a way to force them out of their position if they are reaching their escrow limit. But all in all, it requires a lot more infrastructure than we have at the moment.