Agreed. I'm glad zhou is out of the picture.

"Bitcoinica Consultancy" and "Bitcoin Consultancy" and "Intersango" may all be separate legal entities, but obviously all three are the same three people: patrick, amir, and donald. They may not be legally obligated to handle returning the funds, but I feel they owe it to us given their unauthorized e-mail access screw-up. They are apparently returning the funds in good faith.

I'm still waiting to get a reply confirming that my claim was accurate. I provided extra information as requested about a week ago (to bitcoinica.reimburse@gmail.com, and I also agree that the change in email address was a little eyebrow-raising). My account activity was minimal and extremely simple: one deposit, no withdrawals, one active position held for weeks unchanged.



I'm looking forward to an update to the above status. As someone also in the dark on the status of my claim, I share some of the frustration. But I'm glad to see the reports from people receiving their funds.

That's okay. Its also the same ppl who watch closely with their finger hovering over the buy button, trying to buy in cheaper than they sold, when it looks like its still going up after all. Its mostly those traders selling-and-buying which drives the price higher. Because they're fighting the trend, they end up with less coins in the end.

1. "patently false because i can imagine a scenario of 7% profits per week". Why not 10% per week, or 33% per week?
2 & 3. You said it
4. "pirate doesnt always accept new accounts." it makes sense to limit short-term growth, since it increases overall time and therefore overall size.
5. he said it himself. he wont and i dont blame him.

A large percent value for 1 (7%/wk is large) combined with 5 is a ponzi every time. Is there one historical example which turned out to be genuine profits? Because there are countless examples of ponzis. Which makes the claim of non-ponzi an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

lol good one.

I'm seeing some indications, eg a guy on SETI at home considering mining, Butterfly Labs products being beautiful and *gasp* legit, and YCombinator investing in coinbase. Another thing surprising, last week a merchant I know was contacted through his site by a local magazine and asked to do an interview.

There's no uptick on google trends yet, but if we get over $10 I bet we see one.

I think its possible that some miners get too excited and borrow more than they should to expand capacity. ie., they aren't actually generating said returns and they are expanding quicker than they can afford. Maybe they don't realize that if they're going to speculate on the future price, its more profitable to simply buy them.

Ponzi is a slippery slope...

You're right that most of the effect is due to a few large players, but they are patient and mostly passive. Those "huge moves in unison" are reactions to external pressure, as a weather vane adjusts to the wind. Two signs of buying pressure: trading 60oz of gold for bitcoin, and complaints about delays clogging bitinstant phones.

Although the order book was lopsided then (though I don't think quite as much as now), remember that price had started from $2 that time. After the second bounce off $2, it was a cautious approach to $4-$5. But when $4-$5 broke, it gapped up to $7. What we're seeing now is a cautious approach to $7, and I expect a big gap up to follow, before any correction.

Trends are strong, and this one is still building momentum.

That's a pretty comprehensive list, I think you covered all the bases.

If they offer leverage for btc, who will be able to resist hopping on board? Even though its a slow-motion trainwreck, plain as day.

How many mistakes, whether beta or not? First a corrupted positions table (bitdaytrade: the database should be configured append-only), then plaintext debug messages revealing internal passwords. Better get professional real fast, before you lose huge sums of profit to a "bug in the hedging bot" like bitcoinica did.

How will bitdaytrade handle the net position getting too lopsided? After a fiasco where bitcoinica couldn't close people's shorts because they got too net long and there were no USD funds available for their hedging bot, they had limits indicated by asterisks on the buy or sell button (so positions were only opened on a first come first serve basis).

I look forward to bitdaytrade becoming a solid, stable platform. Professionalism in bitcoin services increases confidence overall.

The rational thought is that money moves from gold into bitcoin. The only scenario I see gold out-performing bitcoin is one where the electric and internet grid go down. But even in that apocalyptic scenario, guns and bullets would be far more valuable than gold.

Or pirate is making those interest payments with investor principal both large and small (as I originally said, not enough principal to go around now). If you allow for that possibility, then you can't derive your proof by contradiction ("if little accounts are depositing like crazy, they aren't little accounts. therefore, pirate is generating real profits. ergo sum").

So, therefore, he's been using investor principal to pay large lenders' interest. As long as new deposits come in faster than the interest payments, then the total funds grow and it makes sense for the operator to continue paying interest. When new deposits stop coming, an operator who wants to maximize his personal profit will stop paying interest and you get default.

The lenders doing pass-through have an edge on the timing since they have access to more information. They should withdraw if they see their own deposits slowing.

The wall isn't hit until the withdraws start. If the biggest investors aren't compounding, that means there's even less in there since they've been continually pulling their interest. Now its just about who's the first to pull their principal.

Source: Inside Apple's Go-Slow Approach to Mobile Payments

Obviously the proof rests with pirate and pirate only, or it wouldn't be a working scam-in-progress. Since the last high of $7.2 price has been decreasing or going sideways, except for the previous month. But more important, are those 6 months or 24 weeks of 7% weekly compounding gains, over 500%!

And you, got any proof that your 500% actually exists? You can withdraw and be relieved that *yours* exists. But don't think that because pirate has a rating on #bitcoin-otc that there will be enough for everybody!

On the buy side it did! Still no resistance at $7.2 (*knock on wood*).

We'll just wait until the very last penny before you have to admit that $7.2 will NOT be the high for 2012.

Market orders are matched and executed, they're broadcasted as trades. Everything else are limit orders, quotes (bids and asks) that go somewhere on each side of the limit order book (LOB). Quotes can be added or removed.

The ones far from the mid-price are wishful thinking and never executed. There's probably a few asks for coins at a million dollars and a few bids for coins at 1 cent. The only time they got executed was last year in the hack, when phantom coins were sold-off in one market order pushing the price to $0.01. There was a guy on the forums claiming he had the bid for a few thousand at $0.01. He never got them of course, since the trade was rolled-back.

There are no facts of pirate generating returns. I will concede that his bitcoinica screenshot, if legit, is some evidence of a profitable trade (though not of "market arbitrage" or "local loans"). Other than that timely release, everything else looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Don't be surprised when its a duck.

That price is going higher increases probability if default. Think about it, if price were decreasing there would be more incentive to stay deposited.

With price going up, people's original deposit is increasing in value. Now their principal is worth more than what they intended to risk at the time, to say nothing of their gains. Lenders are certainly growing uneasy, the smart ones don't want to be last-out-the-door bag-holders (eg MageD). And at 7% weekly, it will take very few lender withdrawals of gains and principal before there's nothing left. Not even counting what pirate intends to keep for himself!

Very few of you will be first out.

That's not garbage, just quotes far from the mid-price.

And the wall is down because of sustained, heavy buying pressure. Each time this happens, its less likely that it goes back up. More likely, a bid wall goes up and the asks shift higher, gapping the price up.

Bullish wedge is still intact, no sell-off despite the ask walls.