When does noise become a trend? After 6 months?  A year?  Three or five years?

It seems I can't send anything to MtGox after the initial handshake without getting disconnected.

I've tried in telnet too (MS Windows telnet client).  Surely it should work?

telnet websocket.mtgox.com 80
Sent the following text:
GET /mtgox HTTP/1.1
Upgrade: WebSocket
Connection: Upgrade
Host: websocket.mtgox.com
Origin: null

After pressing enter the second time I start to get the stream of data.

But when I try to send something like "{'op': 'mtgox.unsubscribe', 'key': 24e67e0d-1cad-4cc0-9e7a-f8523ef460fe}" the connection is lost.  If I send anything at all the connection dies.

I don't get it.  

EDIT: Just tried it again with Putty on Win7.  Type of connection: raw.  Same result.  I can get the streaming data, but as soon as I try to send anything back to the server on the same connection it disconnects.

Bitcoin sure is the people's money.  The people who got into mining early on cents per bitcoin.  We're replacing one aristocracy with another.

I wouldn't say I'm enjoying the falling price, but it is fascinating to watch.  All the excuses that seemed so silly back when people were justifying a $10+ price seem even sillier now.

Could bitcoin ever go back to $10?  Sure.  If I miss the boat I'll be quite annoyed.  But the chorus of 'get back in the market now, it's about to boom!' hasn't stopped all the way from $32 to $3.50.  I'm sure someone will soon post another pretty graph to show bitcoin is still in a massive bull market.

Subscribing to my own channel doesn't work either.  I'm using VB and tried sending ANSI strings to MtGox in various formats, but as soon as I do I lose the TCP connection.  Sending the handshake right after connecting exactly the same way works fine however.

I have tried:

{'key': 'XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX', 'op': 'mtgox.subscribe'}
{'key': 'XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX', 'op': 'subscribe'}
{'op': 'mtgox.subscribe', 'key': 'XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX'}
{'op': 'subscribe', 'key': 'XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX'}

Sending nonsensical data "eg. 'testing 123' to the connection causes a disconnection as well.  Is this standard behaviour if MtGox doesn't recognise the message?

I assume the key is my key listed in my MtGox API section.  I have successfully used the key and secret to retrieve account data using a sample PHP script.

EDIT: Just tried using plain old telnet to connect to MtGox.  Works fine, just like this example:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24900303/screenshot/2011/04/20110415_websocket_telnet_example.png

But as soon as I try to send any subsequent data to the connection I lose it.  The wiki entry at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/MtGox/API is non descriptive. 

"Additionally each user has a "own" channel which streams informations about orders (new order, deleted order, etc) and trades only the user's trades). "

There is no description on how someone can subscribe to their own channel.

If the market is collapsing it makes sense for MtGox not to lift the withdrawl limit, as it could mean funds flee MtGox instead of staying and playing in the market (with MtGox making a cut on every trade).

If MtGox was serious about being an exchange it would offer the equivalent of $10,000 or more per day as the limit.

We need more bitcoiners with investment money sticking their fingers in the leaking dyke.

It's useful, just not as an investment vehicle.  If only people who loved bitcoin and were heavily invested in it were interested in participating in the forums, the forums would quickly descend into groupthink.  I don't think anyone wants to see a cult of bitcoin.

I have joined this thread rather late, but it seems the answer to why the Occupy movement hasn't caught onto bitcoin is two fold:

1: Only nerds and special interest groups really 'get it'.  Try explaining bitcoin to a non computer savvy person.  It's virtually impossible.

2: Adopting bitcoin is replacing one group of greedy people with another.  Greedy bankers and their greedy customers caused the financial crisis.  Now we're asking the Occupy movement to support the early adopters of bitcoin, who are sitting on a mountain of them mined or bought when they cost cents per dollar.

I don't know what the price of bitcoins will be by 2012, but I do know one thing:  there will be no shortage people who have invested large sums of money on the way down, trying to talk it back up. 

'Thank you for selling your bitcoins to me, I'm feasting on your panic and buying up!'

'The bears are just trying to talk it down so they can buy it cheaply!'

'New uses for bitcoins are just around the corner.  It will boom very soon'

It is rather nice that someone keeps trying to start a trend upwards.  Maybe they'll succeed.  But in the meantime, they give a wonderful opportunity to sell into the strength.

That is true.  Bitcoins could be worth $1 each tomorrow and some people could legitimately still claim that bitcoin's value has boomed.  This is assuming they either mined or bought bitcoins when they were worth a handful of cents each.

What we really need to look at is how many people were aware of bitcoin, and had a substantial stake in it when they were worth just a few cents each.  If 100 people bought in at 10c each, yet the vast majority of people interested in bitcoin (let's say, 1000) bought in when popularity boomed in early/mid 2011, the vast majority would be disillusioned with the price hovering around $4.  There are a few winners, but many losers.

Bitcoin's price bubble is still deflating and it's difficult to see what current product or event could see it reach $10+ again.

That's very much what happens.  The biggest perma bulls have the largest financial interests in pumping the market up.  They're been at it all through the $32 -> $4 fall.  It hasn't proven to be successful so far, so one wonders why they persist with a losing strategy.

Total value of bitcoins: about US$31 million
Total US money supply (M2): about $9,544,000 million

Yes, 'they' want to stop bitcoin because it's a threat.  'Those' powerful forces are DDoSing the major pools at the moment. 

My guess is the current DDoS action is an attempt to lower the hash rate right before the next difficulty adustment.  If we see the DDoSes stop in about 90 blocks time then we'll know that was the most plausible explanation.

The trend is your friend.

Piling into bitcoins and buying on the way up to $30 was an easy way to make money.  Just don't be the greatest fool holding the bag.  That's the name of the game: dump your hot commodity or stock before everyone else wakes up and dumps their's.

Bitcoin could well shoot up 100% within a month.  But will it do so from $4 or $2?  That's anyone's guess.

Indeed.  It's always possible to find data to back your bias.  I present, the Japanese stock market.

http://au.finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=%5EN225&t=my

That's one hell of a bubble, still very much burst after 20 years.

Gold's 1980 peak still hasn't been equaled, when adjusted for inflation.  Gold may eventually go higher than ~$2700 (official US inflation figures) or ~$10,000+ (using more extreme 'real' inflation figures), but if a 40 year old trader in 1980 needs to wait 35+ years for that to happen they'll be retired or dead by then.  The bubble may reinflate, but it doesn't do those that saw the original burst any good.

Bubbles rarely reinflate.  They inflate elsewhere, but not at the original source.  Investors hoping for double digit bitcoin values had better heed this advice.

Despite the best efforts of the entire Federal Reserve, the US stock markets are no higher now than they were a decade ago.  Who does bitcoin have to pump in essentially free cash?

Indeed.  Just look through the old threads...

'$25! We've corrected, time to buy again'

'$20! Correction was a bit harsher, hackers are out of the way, time to buy'

'$15! We've reached a new plateau of stability'

'$10! It can't go much lower than here.  I am feasting on the chumps selling out'

'$5! It costs far more to mine a bitcoin than this price.  This is the floor'

The alternative version is:

1. Price falls, reaches new resistance level
2. Bitcoin forum user buys a quantity of bitcoins
3. Said user yells 'BUY! BUY!'
4. Price continues to fall

Nothing official it seems, just a rumour on IRC:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=41155.40

In other news...

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/09/tech/mobile/google-mobile-wallet/index.html

Missed opportunity to get bitcoin mentioned.  Someone go spam the comments section 

Having just purchased a house, I can second this.  Under local law, the lands title office requires a strict procedure for the exchange of cheques (written in dollars, not bitcoins) and signatures.  Banks are instantly going to say a firm "no" if they find someone is trying to pay using bitcoins.  Convert the bitcoins to dollars and then use them perhaps?  Then what's the point in using bitcoins?  Less security than going through official channels, more hassle and more paperwork.

I highly doubt anyone has done a bitcoin based property deal that can actually be proven to exist.

I also can't imagine someone doing a serious deal in a commodity that's so unstable in value.  That 40k in bitcoins has fallen by two thirds in value in three months.  Better cash out real quick after the deal is done....  In my house purchase agreement, signing over the title of the land and actually paying for it occurred 6 weeks after I agreed to buy it for X dollars.  Imagine agreeing to 40k bitcoins then and seeing your property sell for half price 6 weeks later...