Important news for german Bitcoiners:

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/devisen-rohstoffe/digitale-waehrung-deutschland-erkennt-bitcoins-als-privates-geld-an-12535059.html

translated via google:

http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faz.net%2Faktuell%2Ffinanzen%2Fdevisen-rohstoffe%2Fdigitale-waehrung-deutschland-erkennt-bitcoins-als-privates-geld-an-12535059.html

The internet currency Bitcoin has taken another important step towards legal certainty in Germany. Thus, the federal government recognizes the digital currency as a "unit of account". This makes them a kind of "private money", which can be used in "multilateral clearing circles". The production of bitcoins is therefore "private money creation" as the Federal Ministry of Finance announced. To enable the digital currency is accepted and tax law. This emerges from a request from the FDP deputie Frank Schaeffler. The Ministry of Finance was recently often busy with Bitcoins. So also was known by a request from Schaffler that gains from Bitcoins after one year are exempt. The Treasury treats them so differently than stocks, funds or certificates. These are subject to a final withholding tax of 25 percent. The Ministry of Finance explained that the sale of Bitcoins after a year was a private sale transaction within the meaning of the Income Tax Act.

Online Broker Plus500 now offers a Bitcoin – BTCUSD instrument with shortselling: http://bitcoin-square.com/online-broker-plus500-now-offers-a-bitcoin-btceur-instrument-with-shortselling/

Lot’s of peope use Plus500 software, most of them are not professionals. This means that not only more and more people will be able to trade Bitcoin to increase the volume, also they might get interested in Bitcoin by the trading platform, even if trading turns out to be nothing for them.

Bitcoin / USD (BTCUSD) CFD, see also: http://www.plus500.com/Instruments/BTCUSD

edit: link added

sorry, can only post in the newbies-section... cause i'm a newbie   perhaps someone can forward this to the appropriate thread.

looks like display_errors in php.ini is set to "1" on the new mtgox.com. i received this message when opening the site:

Warning: mysqli::mysqli() [mysqli.mysqli]: (08004/1040): Too many connections in /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/includes/DB/MySQL.class.php on line 25

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'Too many connections' in /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/includes/DB/MySQL.class.php:26 Stack trace: #0 /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/includes/DB/MySQL.class.php(73): DB\MySQL->__construct(Array) #1 /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/includes/DB.class.php(24): DB\MySQL::getInstance() #2 /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/includes/db_structure.php(3): DB::getInstance() #3 /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/includes/init.php(48): require_once('/www/p/pl/platf...') #4 /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/www/_handlepage.php(3): require_once('/www/p/pl/platf...') #5 {main} thrown in /www/p/pl/platform-stable.dns.st/includes/DB/MySQL.class.php on line 26

hmm... http://platform-stable.dns.st/

never ever expose php-error-messages to users on a production system! fix it! (btw: php and mysql for a "banking" website... omfg)

edit: seems like they turned the redirect to zendesk on again for the main page.