If you do want to try to buy on the dip, then I would recommend waiting for a bounce (maybe >10%) just to be sure that it's ever going up again.  Also, you may want to consider buying from me :-) or, better, from a trusted vet here to avoid the coins getting stuck in the current transaction delays.  You still won't be able to move the coins for a while, but at least you can have them in the account you want them in.

If anyone is still updating this, I have used my Wells Fargo account(s) to purchase bitcoin routinely.  The only issue I've encountered is that, for instant/debit purchases, their automated fraud system sometimes decides it was fraudulent.  I can't figure out the pattern; half of my Coinbase instant purchases go through, and the other half don't.

Whether they represent themselves as "bitcoin-friendly" and would welcome large and/or business transactions, I can't say.

I am now following up on my earlier post and announcing that Nitrogen has indeed paid out my share (1.53 BTC) of their World Cup contest, a few days before the payout date announced in the contest rules.  Thanks, Nitrogen, for the contest, and congrats to my fellow co-winners!

For those who are tuning into this discussion late, I think it would be useful to summarize the suspicious facts as succinctly as possible at the beginning of this thread.   If Anonibet, Anonitips or other parties involved wish to respond, either by disputing any of the facts or by agreeing but providing logical alternative explanations, they may do so.  That will allow Bitcointalk users who find this thread now or in the future to decide for themselves whether the evidence demonstrates shenanigans in Anonibet's WC contest, as well as to understand the actual scope of the accusation. 

This has become a trial by forum, so you might as well do it right.

I'm not aware of any payout problems.  I believe there was one guy complaining that one of his withdrawals was flagged for manual processing, but that it was resolved quickly.  I can't recall now whether I saw that in the Nitrogen blogs or in a forum here.

It seems like not all users have similar expectations from BTC books; some want complete bilateral anonymity, including freedom from any AML practices at all.  Personally, I would be willing to put up with AML practices that parallel current practices at sportsbooks denominated in fiat currency in exchange for knowing that the sportsbook is a real company staffed by multiple humans in a known location.  

Nitrogen seems to be closer to a fiat sportsbook in terms of its own anonymity, so I expected that they might manually review very large withdrawals.  However, my withdrawals from Nitrogen have always been immediate.  When I withdraw to a Blockchain wallet, the coins appear in my account within a few seconds.  This is clearly too fast for any manual processing or approval at all.  If anyone has been experiencing non-instant withdrawals, that would presumably indicate either a server issue somewhere or some sort of flagging of their account in particular.  I've made ~10 withdrawals in amounts from 0.05 to >4 BTC and all were equally fast.  Since they also credit deposits instantly (even with 0 confirmations), it would be practical to use Nitrogen as a sportsbook while using, e.g., Blockchain for your wallet.  

Hey, Jeremy.  I can attest that I am Nitrogen user 33159.  I managed to make my way onto the leaderboard despite not hearing about the contest until the middle of the tournament.  In case you are concerned that I am a shill for Nitrogen, take a look back at some of my prior posts.  I was sufficiently skeptical just a couple of weeks ago that I was asking about trying to set up a third-party hedge system to protect against the possibility of a fly-by-night sportsbook.  If you go further back in my posts to December/January, you'll see that my skepticism has its roots in the Bitcoinsports debacle, which I had the displeasure of participating in.

In the interest of complete transparency, I should point out that Nitrogen has not yet paid out the 1.53 BTC contest winnings.  This is exactly as stated in the contest terms, which say that they will pay out on July 26.  Since they paid out my > 5 BTC in winnings yesterday and let me withdraw it within minutes, I have very little fear at this point that they will be moving to Bermuda on 7/25.  Nevertheless, I'll come back here and let everyone know when they pay out. 

As for the other contest winners, I think that the individual bet slips linked on their blog are pretty convincing.  The only other winner with whom I have personally corresponded is member # 200.  I can say with great confidence that he is also not a Nitrogen insider.  Our initial chat conversation centered around a bad line that we had both noticed.  Once we burst each other's hopes that each of us was the only one who had noticed this "golden" opportunity, we brought it to the attention of Nitrogen support.  They generously offered him an unsolicited tip for this, by the way, as they did to me in a similar circumstance a few days later. 

In summary, I fully appreciate your skepticism about BTC sportsbooks in general, about NitrogenSports in particular, and about this looks-too-good-to-be-true World Cup contest.  However, my personal experience with them has been excellent to date, and I have the Bitcoins to prove it!  They are subject to occasional DDOS attacks, but I consider this part of the territory.  I'm sure they'll reduce the impact of these over time.

P.S.  I was robbed of 2.5 BTC on my bet that Thomas Mueller would win the Golden Ball, but the corrupt, greedy, secretive organization responsible for that theft was FIFA, not NitrogenSports!

Peeps Place, or anyone else interested, do you think that we could use a prediction market to provide a measure of trust for bitcoin sportsbooks?  This would provide a means for skeptical bettors to hedge against the risk of fraud. 

One problem with this plan is whether anyone would be willing to bet that the book was not going to disappear (or whatever the contract specified).  At a minimum, the sportsbook itself should be willing to provide some bids to help build confidence.  After all, if they are legit, they would be betting on an outcome that they control.  The only excuse they would have to not do this is a desire not to tie up the capital.  However, they could roll this over as contracts expired.  Any sportsbook lacking the capital required to do this should be extremely worrisome for that reason alone.

An additional issue with this plan is, of course, the reliability of the prediction market itself.  There seem to be a few of these that have now emerged as fairly stable.  Some, such as Predictious, have also demonstrated a level of transparency that is, so far, unheard of among the sportsbooks themselves.  (At least they have an address, a verifiable company name and a legal jurisdiction!)  Ironically, some of the legal limitations that are a principal reason for both sportsbook owners and players to prefer anonymity might not apply to a bet on whether the sportsbook would "go Madoff".

The final challenge I see would be structuring the contract in an objective way, allowing verification without requiring the prediction market to launch a huge investigation.   This is an issue, but I think that it could be addressed.

A couple of near-term examples would be:

  "Nitrogensports / Anonibet to pay out 20 BTC World Cup contest bonus." 

Since these books have taken pains to provide transparency to these contests, it should be possible to verify these outcomes.  In effect, the bonus amount could be held in escrow by the market. Players participating in these contests could do so with confidence, and could hedge against the fraud risk, if desired.

Has this been suggested, or even tried, before?

Congratulations, Armis, I think you've discovered a new economic indicator: Coinbase hot-wallet BTC inventory

When they tell you they're "out", thus creating the appearance that a buying spree is taking place, that is a very negative indicator.  Expect bitcoin to plummet.

...or maybe it's just coincidence that they ran out on a Monday afternoon, shortly before issuing a public statement sure to send the market into a tailspin...

Whether this document is true or (more likely IMO) a fake, I find it comical that the number of bitcoins allegedly lost over a few years is 744,408.  An organization that failed to notice the disappearance of half a billion dollars, millions of dollars per employee, nevertheless is supposed to have been able to calculate their losses to an accuracy better than 1 part in 10⁵. 

There was not just one person who had trouble with withdrawals.  Over the ~10 days before MtGox completely halted withdrawals, there was a growing chorus of account holders complaining that their withdrawals were not being processed.  There is at least one huge thread here full of such complaints.  A number of websites, including Coindesk, created polls that revealed hundreds of customers awaiting withdrawals totaling tens of thousands of BTC.

Gox's service was so bad for so long, that no one complaint could have raised any eyebrows. 

First of all, it's not coincidence that the craziness at MtGox and the debacle at Silk Road 2.0 occurred at about the same time.   Gox's announcement about the transaction malleability "bug" provided either a method to bleed SR2 dry or (relatively) plausible deniability for an inside job by one or more of the Silk Road 2.0 site operators.

Second, the number of bitcoins stolen from Silk Road 2.0 is nowhere near sufficient to account for the decline in prices at MtGox since then.  The cumulative volume on Gox is well over 100,000 GoxBTC just since the flash-crash that occurred right around midnight on the night of Feb. 13 / morning of Feb. 14, which some were inclined to attribute to the SR2 thieves dumping their coins.  Only 4000 BTC were stolen from Silk Road 2.0. 

I certainly agree that the volatility at Gox is nuts.  Quantitatively, though, I think it's far crazier than you're giving it credit for.  Unfortunately, I am skeptical that any legitimate market activity can fully explain the decline at Gox.  Internal market manipulation by Gox, e.g. misrepresentation of the number they have on hand ("printing GoxBTC"), could explain it.

Although it may well be true that few people are aware of BitcoinBuilder, that doesn't seem to be an adequate explanation of the GoxBTC / RealBTC exchange rate there.  Unless I'm mistaken, internal transfers at Gox were only recently suspended.  I would expect that the exchange rate at BitcoinBuilder prior to those transfers was much closer to the Gox / Bitstamp price ratio. 

Until I read this, I had wondered why MtGox suspended internal transfers.  Unfortunately, the most plausible explanation seems to be that they want to prevent a whale, in this case BitcoinBuilder, from amassing too large a share of GoxBTC (or GoxUSD).  A whale might be in a better position to identify suspicious market behavior, might have more financial incentive to pursue means to put pressure on MtGox, and might be a more formidable enemy in court.

There is obviously a lot of irrational behavior surrounding the MtGox exchange right now, so perhaps there is some danger in reading too much into divergences from fair value.  At the very least, this re-emphasizes that suspension of internal transfer is a significant new red flag added to the MtGox red flag Winter collection.

Interesting.
This would certainly appear to be an offer at much better than market rates, since fair value looks to be more like 
Bitstamp-rate/Gox-rate ~ 660 / 280 = 2.35 to 1

Of course, that assumes that the transactions taking place on the MtGox exchange are all legitimate. 
How exactly would we conduct this transaction?  Didn't Gox suspend internal transfers?

There might be another way for you to make the same bet (that Gox is headed to 0), although the volume you're looking for could be a challenge.  Have you looked into options on the Gox price?

These transactions will confirm eventually.

They are almost certainly intended to defeat pseudonymity.  This is discussed extensively in other threads.  There is also  free software available to get rid of them, at least for bitcoin-qt.

With regards to the original question about how many people have received these, I think it might be easier to ask who has conducted a bitcoin transaction over the past week and has not received any gifts of this one-Satoshi-spam.  It seems that whomever is sending these is spamming the entire blockchain.

This is an interesting idea, and I appreciate the contrarian view that a catastrophic crash is a buying opportunity. 

I'm not sure who your suggestion is directed at.  Who has fiat sitting on the sidelines at Gox? I don't think you're suggesting that people deposit dollars in their Gox accounts, and things have finally reached the point that I doubt anyone is doing so.  Moving bitcoin onto Gox at the moment seems even crazier, since the huge price disparity makes that market a terrible place to sell BTC if you have any other choice.

If you really believe that Gox is insolvent, desperate and willing to manipulate the market to save themselves, then it seems to me that you are underestimating the power they have.  The MtGox market is totally unregulated and opaque.  They can do whatever they want with their order book.  Even the best poker players know that they can't beat a cheater.  The only reason I don't particularly think that such shenanigans are behind the current price action at Gox is that their ineptitude casts doubt on whether they're smart enough to cheat so effectively.   

In addition, if solvency is really the problem, then I think that may be a good reason to keep your funds in "fiat".  If Gox collapses, there will be legal action.  There might be a shred of hope of getting some of your $$$ back, but the legal basis for recovering bitcoin is murky at best. 

Good luck with your strategy, if you do decide to follow it.  I'll be watching from afar.

I would be shocked if they made any substantive comment, which raises the interesting question of why they pre-announced the announcement in the first place.  My guess is that this was just a reflexive response to buy some time.  They figured, probably correctly, that most people would be perfectly willing to give them the weekend to work it out. 

Did they not even think through what would happen when they had nothing to say for themselves on Monday?  Or were they perhaps delusional enough to believe that they could fix a major technical problem that quickly? 

I just hope someone was there making sure they didn't sell all their bitcoin and run!

This may be the least important part of the story to you, but it is an absolutely critical part of the money laundering case.  There is no way they would have indicted these guys for money laundering without that.  Even if they had, the prosecutor would drop the charge to avoid the embarrassment of an acquittal or, worse, a dismissal.

However, I agree that this is not particularly relevant to the charge of running an unlicensed money transfer business. One thing that is unclear from these indictments is whether the sting was intended to uncover money laundering or just unlicensed money transfer. 

It will be interesting to see whether these cases go to trial.  It seems plausible to me that they will want to use these cases, in which a conviction will be relatively straightforward, to establish a precedent.  If they truly just wanted to nab these two guys, then I would expect expect the defendants to plead out.  The prosecutor might not offer them a reasonable plea deal if they want the precedent for future, murkier situations, such as cases connected to Silk Road.

LOL.  I'm curious who offered this explanation.  The price at Gox is higher, because withdrawing fiat is more difficult at Gox than at the most reputable exchanges.  "USD" in your Gox account were, in effect, worth less than USD in an account that you could withdraw with confidence and without undue delay.  

This is why the sudden drop in the price premium between MtGox and other exchanges over the past 48 hours is so troubling.  It's not because "Gox USD" are worth more than they were last week; evidently "Gox BTC" are now worth less than real BTC, because people are no longer confident that they will be able to move their bitcoin out of MtGox.

It does seem to be the reason for the drop in price.  Whether the price should drop is not so clear to me, though.  Previously, when Gox only blocked fiat withdrawals, it was obvious that the USD/BTC price should be higher there than on other exchanges.  The bitcoin there were worth just as much, but a "dollar" on Gox was worth less than a real dollar.  However, if both the denominator and the numerator are going to zero, then what is a fair exchange rate between "Gox dollars" and "Gox bitcoin"?

Personally, if I had not abandoned Gox a year ago after they embezzled from me, I would be buying bitcoin there.  Although neither fiat nor bitcoin withdrawals are working as they should now, it's much still much more likely that you'll be able to get your bitcoin out of there than that they'll pay you in fiat.  If anything, I would think that this news should be causing a spike in the price at Gox.  Expect the volatility to keep rising there if they don't resolve this soon.

If this does turn out to be just a massive technical glitch, then the main effect will be to slightly reduce faith in bitcoin generally and thus drive the price down at all exchanges.  On the other hand, it will certainly drive even more people away from Gox, which can only be good for the bitcoin community in the long run, IMHO.

I certainly understand your frustration, wasubii.  However, as I tried to point out in an earlier post, I don't think it makes much sense for bit365 to stall in the hope of raking in enough money to pay people off.  He's only taking it a little over 1 BTC per day in bets now, even at the peak of the (American) football betting season.  Even if his average profit were close to the 6% it has hovered around historically, this isn't going to pay off even one of his big investors for months.  On top of that, the book has been losing money of late, at least if you believe the posted bets and numbers.  Surely he is aware of all of this.

This obviously doesn't make it any more excusable that bit365 is hiding.  I tend to believe his story about lost cold-storage bitcoins.  My best guess is that his brief optimism that the remaining lost wallets could be recovered hasn't panned out.

In any case, his lack of communication and lack of transparency about the details of the problem remains unacceptable.  He has mis-managed the PR campaign since the beginning of the problem and has exacerbated the damage to the website's reputation.  If he pays everyone back tomorrow, he will now have an uphill battle to rebuild his image. Every day that goes by just makes it a little bit worse. Seriously, bit, what do you hope to gain from your silence? 

Thanks for letting us all know that bit365 failed to meet his deadline with you, wasubii.  It's not encouraging, but it is an important bit of news.