What else was there to be fearful about other than the sight of a high-volume Bitcoin sell-off?

This is actually a classic case of how traders are using Mt. Gox to manipulate prices. Notice how the price of bitcoin has plunged nearly $30 while this has been going on.

When they get the price down far enough, they'll buy back massive amounts and repeat the process for as long as Mt. Gox allows their API to process massive amount of micro transactions from a single seller.

This process gives them a guaranteed way to buy low and sell high over and over again.

Here's a more detailed explanation from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238571/Largest_bitcoin_exchange_Mt._Gox_39_throttles_39_trading_to_tame_price_swings:

Miscreants are also trying to manipulate the virtual currency's price by using Mt. Gox's API (application programming interface) to submit trades for very small fractions of bitcoins. It is possible to watch real-time trades on Mt. Gox through services such as Clark Moody's website, which shows Mt. Gox's order book, or the prices at which people want to either sell or buy bitcoins.

During heated trading, it is possible to see a rapid influx of very small quantities of bitcoin on both the buy and the sell side. A sell order for .0111 of a bitcoin, for example, would represent US$1.33 if one bitcoin is trading for $120.

It doesn't appear that buying or selling a $1.33 slice of a bitcoin would be very practical given the small economy so far for bitcoin services, although the market is growing. But entering lots of small sell orders, for example, can give the impression that bitcoin's price is falling even if it doesn't represent the broader market sentiment. Traders can submit more than one transaction using Mt. Gox's API.

What happened?

DDoS?

It is 1:03 AM UTC

Will the sell-off continue or did most people find other avenues to sell in the last 12 hours?

Really? The exchange that controls 80% of Bitcoin trading can declare a "market cooldown" period whenever it wants for as long as it wants, and you call that a free market?

I don't.

We have no way of knowing.

Mt. Gox says at https://support.mtgox.com/entries/21519569-Market-Cooldown-for-12-hours:

"However, you may still cancel your pending and open orders."

We have no idea how many "pending and open orders" Mt. Gox has yet to execute. There could be hundreds or even thousands.

Also, what kind of viable currency would allow an exchange that controls 80% of the market to declare a "market cooldown" whenever it pleases and for however long it pleases?

If you have access to another exchange, you'd better give serious consideration to what could happen 5 hours from now.

It's an interesting irony that some people will require a great deal of trust to exist before they'll spend their no-trust currency.

In those cases, BTC is useless as an everyday currency unless payment processors begin to accept it. Central banks and governments can easily stop that from happening.

The additional time and difficulty involved with realizing BTC revenue compared to that of USD through a single payment processor will have many merchants such as myself taking a pass on it for now.

Lacking a strong merchant base, I don't think Bitcoin will ever be any more useful to most people than a virtual tulip would be.

I'm sure there are many people for whom that will be enough, however.

Would a 3% discount be enough for you to buy with Bitcoins instead of PayPal or a credit card?

I'm interested because I'm considering adding Bitcoin buttons to an info products website. If I go to the expense of doing that, I want people to use them.

PizzaForCoins.com adds a BTC 0.03 surcharge (currently USD 5.45) to all orders. If BTC holders are willing to pay this kind of premium to use their Bitcoin, why shouldn't I do something similar?

I think a lot of potential Bitcoin merchants would be interested in our honest answer.

Just so we're perfectly clear on this:

You had over $14,100 USD worth of bitcoin in your wallet and didn't back it up?

You felt the drive overheat and you STILL didn't back it up?

The Chinese have QQ.

Here's something else that I found interesting:

Regional Interest in Litecoin by Country in the Last 30 Days (Google Trends):

100 United States

That's it! There's apparently no statistically significant interest in Litecoin outside of the USA. Any theories as to why that is?

I found this interesting. After all the news about Cyprus and the EU, I thought there would have been more representation from those countries:


Regional Interest in Bitcoin by Country in the past 30 days (Google Trends):

100 Finland
 89 Slovakia
 78 Czech Republic
 74 Sweden
 74 Ireland
 74 United States
 74 Israel
 69 Canada
 68 United Kingdom
 66 Netherlands


Regional Interest in Bitcoin by City in the past 30 days (Google Trends):

100 London
 91 New York
 87 Toronto
 73 Melbourne
 72 Los Angeles
 66 Sydney
 57 Madrid

Hi!

I'm Stylus Inkpen from Second Life.

I came here wondering if I should trade my millions of Lindens for BTC.

It seems like there are currently a lot more things to spend my Lindens on than there would be with BTC, though.

I realize that I could get rich (on paper) on off-grid terms with BTC right now, but I'm already filthy rich so who cares?

I just want to have FUN!

Hi!

It's me, your old buddy Sylus!