No unanticipated losses, particularly since my spending money in Instawallet was eventually returned.  Trajectory on target for a decent win in the end.  No real regrets so far except that I've been to lazy, fascinated with the price rise, and focused on how I might capitalize to take the time to really understand the system in a deep technical way or make any contributions.

10k-ish is about as low as I've seen in maybe forever by my recollection of things.

Not that it matters much.  The amount that users don't have on the block combined with the amount in any dark pools (If Gox runs them currently) combined with their own stash (which I would guess is upwards of 100k) likely dwarfs what shows up on their public feed.

Seems pretty obvious to me that the same pressures which are driving desperate sellers off of Mt. Gox are driving them on to Bitstamp.  So the artificial spot inflation at Mt. Gox kind of implies an artificial spot deflation at Bitstamp.  I wouldn't expect things to last indefinitely (if either or both exchanges survive at all), and some people are already complaining about Bitstamp starting to 'gox'.  I never had an inclination to use them so I wouldn't know.

BTCChina looks to me like the most 'natural' market.  Some Chinese have been saying that it's not a problem to deal with fiat there.  Whenever I check, it seems to be the case that BTCChina is about in the middle of Mt. Gox and Bitstamp.  That would lend some strength to my argument about equal (or at least related) and opposite artificial forces impacting the two Western exchanges.

Maybe, maybe not.  Might be worth keeping an eye on this thread:

  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=313343.0

and scanning for recent complaints.

I think it is fair to say that sometimes Mt. Gox will fuck with people who they believe (often correctly) are criminals of some sort.  It could be that the person or persons victimized by this policy are a minority.  OTOH, another similar thread indicates that a similar policy went into place at Bitstamp the other day, so if this is true and widespread, the two largest exchanges are now holding customers BTC hostage using an identity theft kit as the ransom.  I am just about 99% sure that the individual who pitched a bitch about it on Bitstamp is 100% non-criminal.

Caution is advised.  If this requirement for high quality identity docs for any withdrawals of any type is now SOP, and if the exchanges doing this are allowing any inflow of value without first 'verifying', then that is IMO simply setting the table for extortion.  None of these jack-ass exchanges have ever been clear about their policies in their FAQs, and I've studies them extensively because I value my identity documents very highly and identity theft would be an expensive hassle to me.  Plus these flakey fucking exchanges get hacked and lose data every other day it seems.  Probably every day and they don't even know it.

 - edit:

Not to be so lazy, here is the similar complaint about Bitstamp.  Or one of them:

  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=309270.0

It's especially droll that these guys used Facebook as some sort of a supposed communications channel and didn't send e-mail about this hardly trivial change.  Facebook?  In Bitcoin-land?!?  I would not touch Facebook with a 10 foot pole, and a fair number of my geeky and privacy conscious friends do not either.

Or just buying BTC to sit on them and see what happens since in recent days we seem to have the potential to be on the cusp of another run-up.  If I had had cash on Mt. Gox over the past few days that is probably what I would do.  Now it is true that I have a 2 month delinquent wire which I guess I could re-convert, but I have enough BTC (tucked safely in bed in deep storage) that I don't need to worry to much about such annoying hoops to jump through.

Whatever the case, it looks like a BTC low liquidity event is rearing it's ugly head, and kind of across the whole ecosystem.  Perhaps it's an artifact of the decreased velocity associated with the loss of Silk Road?

A quick scan shows maybe 30k BTC on the open books of all the exchanges combined.  And they've been evaporating quickly and not being replaced effectively.  Looks to me like panic is starting to set in.  Many people are probably feeling like if they don't get some BTC now, it will be to late and they'll have to pay much higher prices or simply be left behind...and they could be right.

If history repeats, or even rhymes, then there will certainly be a crash but it might be only to much higher levels than we see today, and might only last a brief time before it's next point of stability.  Hopefully that will occur well into the 4-fig range in USD/BTC terms.  We'll see.

Certainly none of us Keynesians sold.  The severe decrease in velocity was bound to explode the price. (*)

* Actually, this is more or less a complete troll.  I only thought of it yesterday, and don't even know if the relationship between currency value and velocity is Keynesian, universal, or even valid or what.  Sounds good though.

I have only attempted one incoming wire, and that was from Mt. Gox.  It was over two months ago and (probably needless to say) it has not come through.

I pestered Mt. Gox after several months.  All I got back from them was boilerplate, but it indicated that they had not attempted a wire.  I had asked specifically if they did attempt one and if it was rejected, but again their response was just boilerplate.  I think it highly unlikely that they even attempted.  The amount was for around $5k.

Back in mid->late 2011 I did a lot of out-bound wires.  The were in the $1k-$2k range and all went to Tradehill.  Even though they were quasi-Chilean all of the wires were domestic as I recall.  Tradehill was, like everyone, getting run out of banking relationships regularly.  It's always been a tough row to hoe in Bitcoin-land when it comes to the interface between BTC and fiat.

I had to answer ye or nah to whether I anticipated incoming international wires when I set up my account.  Might be advisable to  confirm with your bank that everything is groovy here.  This was Wells Fargo and a 'PMA' account.

Also, I set up my current account perhaps 6 months ago.  Things seem to be changing rapidly here in the US, so if I were anticipating a somewhat large wire, I'd double-check that any initial understandings were still valid.

I'd love to see one to, but I wouldn't hold my breath.  Mt. Gox has a long history which makes it probably impossible to come up with any meaningful estimates of what they might be sitting on.

It is interesting to watch whether liquidity comes off of the public order-book when large trades happen.  Some of these within the last few days did not seem to.  So it was either BTC that had not been on the market, was in a dark pool, or was newly arrived from quasi-whale contacts of theirs.  The most interesting thing to know would be whether they are burning through their own (probably) substantial pool which they've accumulated over the years.  These things can only be guessed at and inferred absent a whistle-blower, hack, or something like that.  Even then the info would have to be taken with a grain of salt.

IMHO, it's a completely shitty business practice to allow people to fund an account without releasing high quality identity docs then turn around and demand them for withdrawal of the same funds.

By the letter of the law it may be legal, but it is absolutely hostage taking in the scheme of things.

I've mentioned several times, but I personally value my identity doc kit at tens of thousands USD.  This because it will cost me that in time, hassle, and money if it is exploited.  Even if a company is on the level, it is very common for hackers or insiders to steal data, and fairly common for a company to not even know about it.  Indeed, Mt. Gox themselves have has such issues in the past.

Just because something is orders of magnitude more valuable to the victim than it is to the thief does not mean that it won't be stolen.  Thieves will cut up a $20,000 piece of equipment and sell it for a few hundred in scrap value.  The mathematics make sense to the thief so it happens a lot.

If Bitstamp, Mt. Gox, or anybody else is going to hold customer value for ransom and feel that they have no choice but to do so for legal reasons, they should give a reasonable warning (e.g., NOT just a Facebook post) so that customers who value their identity papers can make adjustments.  And they damn sure should not be taking in funds that they cannot allow to be withdrawn.  That is simply fraud in my opinion.

I scanned Mt. Gox's FAQ and related documentation fairly carefully before choosing to do business with them.  While it was some time ago, they never were very clear on requirements for BTC inputs and outflows.  Bitstamp was also a bit ambiguous when I looked at them (much more recently) but I only skimmed since I could see the writing on the wall and did not seriously consider patronizing them.

Most likely they run out and had to go to cold storage.

How it could possibly be more efficient to field a lot of tickets (and lie to + offend people in the process) than to simply put up a notice is beyond me.

More than that, though, when someone runs out of hot supply it is noteworthy.  It typically means that business is not chipping along in an ordinary manner as anticipated by system design...

Personally I would be perfectly fine being inconvenienced by exhaustion of hot storage from time to time because it means that the provider is being conservative in their risk implementation.  But there is no reason that I can see to hide or lie about the nature of a failure for hot/cold storage reasons or really for any other reason.

Follow-up notes for anyone who is interested in attempting such a transaction:

 - There are large buyers, but the going rate seems to be in the 5% to 7% range below Bitstamp.  I happen to feel that just as frustrated sellers are moving from Mt. Gox due to fiat-out issues, they are moving to Bitstamp and depressing the spot price there.  BTCChina seems to me the best base-line indication of the market at this time, but recent news out of China could be distorting that exchange as well.

 - As I mentioned, quality identity docs are important to me.  How important?  Probably 10's of thousands of $ since I estimate that that is what it will cost me in some combination of time, hassle, and money if they are sold onto the market and exploited.  If this were not a factor, I'd happily try out all kinds of exchanges.  Certain offers were made with both the disadvantageous premium and also the need to send document scans.  Generally I have no problem identifying myself, and there is plenty of info on the bitcointalk.org archives alone to dox me if someone wished to do so.  It's a custom made identity theft kit which I wish to avoid setting free into the wild, and even reputable companies get hacked and suffer data thefts with dismal regularity.  Often enough they don't even know they got hacked when it's the work of a professional.

 - In one case I got to the point of discussing the mechanics of a transaction.  The proposal was without escrow and would have had me taking the naked risk.  I believe that nobody should take a naked risk in any Bitcoin transaction, and the fact that people are willing to do so has had a very detrimental impact on the ecosystem over the years.

As I was mulling things over and communicating with people who were some distance away, I had an idea which seems to me like it would be fair and serve an 'earnest' function.  It is that one party buys at least plane fare for the other.  There would be not much reason to reach and agreement then weasel out of it for the person doing the travel if there was a component of feedback, and the party paying for the fare would lose his investment if he welched.  I know from experience that I can fly from PDX to SFO, conduct a series of inteviews, then get back to Portland while the sun is still high.  It's not fun, but it's not that bad either.

Anyway, I'm planning to peruse my fall-back strategy for this batch of BTC liquidations.  Perhaps I'll open the thread again to see how things have evolved if/when I do some future batch.

I'd guess that your chances of finding a 12 gauge in Shibuya are about the same as getting one through security at Narita.

From a systems engineering perspective it seemed an odd sort of series of errors to me.  It looked to me like something of an empirical experiment especially as word came down from Walmart HQ to just let things roll in the 'wide open' phase.  Just sayin'

Whatever the case, the series of events had some entertainment value...tempered with a tinge of empathy...

Back in the days of old when I was buying BTC, I found the ability to overlay the activity of several exchanges to be sort of a 'killer app' of Bitcoinity.  It was not that I did arbitrage, but some of the signals from an exchange I didn't use were helpful in timing things one the exchange that I did.  Since I used Bitcoinity the most, I also got more comfortable with it and that has persisted to this day.

Currently I feel that BTCChina provides the most 'pure signal' since according to some, at least, there is minimal regulatory interference with persons wishing to obtain Yuan for their BTC.  The price BTCChina spot splitting Gox and Stamp (when I looked a bit ago) adds weight to that argument.

Anyhoo, sure would be cool to somehow get BTCChina displayed, and also to be able to do overlays.  If overlays are possible and I just don't know how to do it, it would be cool to know.

It sucks.  Trust me.

Yup.  Denial (which is rife here even on bitcointalk.org forum) could turn to outright panic in about one day under the right set of circumstances.  More likely, though, things will take the form of the boiling frog if the management of perception engineering is any good.

A gag order is a very possible explanation for a lot of the communications failures, but I doubt that one would force them to repeat the 'several weeks' estimates.  Thus, they are either completely lost about how their business is progressing or willing to offend their customers with bald-faced lies.  Neither is very appealing and the honest truth is that I expected better from Mt. Gox.

Companies who are willing to shoot themselves in the foot by producing patently false information often do so because they see the end of the tunnel...and there is no light there.  I honestly hope that Mt. Gox succeeds but it is questionable enough to me at this point that I drew down my exposure in the case of a collapse.  I did the same with Bitcoinica several months before they went down.  It was mostly dumb luck, but if one has their eyes open certain signs can sometimes be noted.

From the article:

  "Chase said it is not exerting new capital controls on customer accounts."

I would say that that is probably true.  What is happening is that regulatory bodies are 'exerting new capital controls' on people through financial institutions and by increasing certain pressures.  Whether this is by accident or design is a legitimate question, but it is capital control, it is working, and the end effect is certainly being felt.

I'm feeling it mightily right now since my wire from Mt. Gox has been held up for several months, and in order to capitalize on my BTC speculation I am being pressured to give up multiple high quality copies of sensitive identity documents to parties who I cannot fully trust.

In my case I actually WANT my transactions to be monitored and analyzed because my activity in Bitcoin-land is entirely legal and I have every intention of declaring my profits legally.  (It would be retarded to give the authorities an excuse to fuck me by not following the law to the letter, but that's just my opinion.)  Sending money through my bank who has 'vetted' me fully and reports activity to enforcement bodies should be perfectly sufficient to preclude both identity and reporting fraud.  Yet intermediaries are still being pressured to hold duplicate copies of my dox.  I can see no reason for it other than flat out harassment by regulators and/or efforts to influence capital flows.

BTW, I consider my identity dox themselves to be worth tens of $k because that would probably be what it would cost me if they were released into the wild over a life-time of fighting the issues that would be likely to crop up.  I've sent my dox to Mt. Gox only.  I would much rather have not sent them to anyone, but if they get ripped off now, I will know for certain that Mt. Gox is at fault...for whatever good that might do...