Bummer.

I'm sure it'll get fixed. Game seems to have a good rep.

Now that the site is back up, I'd check to see if your bets are on the list. Mine showed up there.

Ah well, might as well play out the hand.

Sent PM re: bet around time of crash.

Thanks to trade fees, and no fee trading on MTgox, margins are pretty much already gone.

I think your cynicism blocks your understanding of the issue - if there was a reasonable way to spend BTC on things people valued (like groceries, gas or entertainment), they wouldn't be so eager to cash out.

Let them trade and keep the market active while the bitcoin economy gets its act together on the commerce side. It's only a matter of time, really.

To revive an old thread - is there any data or visualizations that clock relationship between transaction fee size and confirmation rate?

@nhodges: I should probably move this discussion (at this point) to the tech boards, but did you try running that code? I got it up and running this morning, but the results it feeds out are wildly different from what they should be. Like, inconsistently off by around 10 or 15%.

Hoping to not have to spend a whole lot of time on this, but I may hafta.

Damn that was quick. Shoulda remembered SO. How much you want for your help?

I'm looking for help delving into Paypal's currency converter API. I've written code in PHP / Jscript to do some simple conversions of currency for a spreadsheet I designed in Google to help manage my BTC finances, but it was fairly easy to achieve thanks to Google's simple APIs.

Paypal's APIs are significantly more convoluted. Witness the documentation you have to wade through to get the rates Paypal use to convert currency.

Here's the documentation for the currency converter API:

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_api_APConvertCurrency

Here's the documentation for the parent API, the Adaptive Payments API:

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_api_APIntro

I could figure it out, if I didn't have a day job and a need for sleep, and I'd gladly rip off some GitHub code to do this, if there were any to be had.

I can put up a couple BTC for the time of whomever can meet with me on Skype and help explain it. If it adds incentive for anyone, I'll post the source here on the forum for group consumption.

Ideally, the output should be as easy to manage (in JSON format) as the output of the Google currency converter API is.

Quick update: I lied - I didn't go to sleep, solved it using your useragent CURL idea, and used my own server as Google's data source.  I'll update the thread tomorrow with the breakdown and solution in case anyone else tries to do this.

Thanks a ton.

It's Google's App Scripting language - it's used to do fancy stuff to just about everything on their platform. I was specifically using it to import live JSON data into a spreadsheet.

That's a bit annoying - about to head off to bed.  Google Apps (from what I'm reading in the forums) doesn't allow you to set the USERAGENT, so I'll probably have to load a script up onto my server to mirror the MTGOX feed, and then try to load that in as a data source to Google Apps.

If I have time to do this tomorrow, I'll update the thread as to whether it works. I was having issues getting Curl to grab and mirror the data when using MTgox as a direct source, or using this as a source: http://btc.jalder.com/mtgox.php (which, theoretically, wouldn't be subject to the USERAGENT limitation).

Incidentally, I also had problems getting Google to not time out on the Jalder.com source as well. The only conclusion that I can reach is that Google hates MTgox.

That this is the only conclusion I can reach is a sure-fire sign I need some sleep. I'll attack it again in the morning.

Thanks for the pointers.

(incidentally, this is the simple Curl script I was using:

<?php
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    //curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://btc.jalder.com/mtgox.php");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://mtgox.com/code/data/ticker.php");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    $output = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    echo $output;
?>

What you're saying is to simply add:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "php bot");

And I should be copacetic?)

As a follow up - I went ahead and wrote functions for all the trade APIs I could find out there, and mtGox is the only one still not resolving. Did a bit more research, found some folks who said that the best way to retrieve data was thru the WS methods (which is quite a bit more complex than I wanted to make for a simple spreadsheet).

Any help is appreciated.

Update: Wasn't able to pull in mtgox trade data into Google App Scripts (so that it could be manipulated as live data in Google Spreadsheets), so I wound up making a mirror script on my personal domain. I had to use the Curl option to set the user agent (something you can't control, to the best of my knowledge, within Google). That, inelegantly, solved my problem.

tl;dr: Google App Scripting can't grab mtgox live trade data without going through an intermediary script. Solution is in this thread.

I'm trying to write a simple script to pull in the latest MTgox Trade Data into a spreadsheet.

Here's what my function looks like:

function mtGoxTradeData() {
  var jsondata = UrlFetchApp.fetch("https://mtgox.com/code/data/ticker.php");
  var object = Utilities.jsonParse(jsondata.getContentText());
  return object.ticker.last;
  
}

For some reason - retrieval of MTGox's API data always times out. When I do the same on ExchangeBitCoins, it gets the data flawlessly.

function exchangeBitCoinsTradeData() {
  var jsondata = UrlFetchApp.fetch("https://www.exchangebitcoins.com/data/ticker");
  var object = Utilities.jsonParse(jsondata.getContentText());
  return object.ticker.last;
  
}

Not sure what the deal is. Anyone experienced with Google's app platform?

I don't know what to say, chief. It's not a fishy deal?

At any rate, Google me. I put out my home phone number and my current location via Google Latitude on my personal blog, so it's not hard to track me down.

Awesome!

Now someone just needs to make a greasemonkey script that will automatically convert all the denominations on foreign markets to the currency you want to look at them in.

I gotta be honest - I don't mind there being a variety of games to play. I understand why people get annoyed at the spam (and continue to second the idea of putting them all into a separate sub-forum).

Here's why the games are a good idea to have around, even if they are considered a "scam" by some users.

* There aren't a lot of things to spend BTC on right now. It's an easy, low-risk way to get to know the system and the quirks of sending and recieving BTC.
* These games are much less rigged than anything you find in your typical casino.
* Gaming for money is addictive, and it's also something with mainstream appeal. You want to spread BTC to the masses? Have accessible games with a high chance of winning, and you'll educate more people quicker than anything.

There are downsides - these are just my observations as someone who enjoys playing the odds while I'm at work (the way I see it, most of my coworkers are playing farmville - at least I have a chance at getting a couple bucks back - :-) ).

Looking to spend $1000 on 76 BTC.

* Offer is good through the weekend (US Central Time).
* I'm American, so the quickest way for the transfer to go thru is Paypal.
* If I were doing it on a weekday, I'd consider using a wire transfer, but I'm pretty sure my local bank can't support that on a weekend.
* I can provide identity verification of your choice to hedge against chargeback risk (I'm a moderately well known tech pundit, so it'd be pretty easy to track me down, anyway).

It's below market rates, I know, but most of the markets up don't have the depth to get that volume at a reasonable rate.

Contact me via PM. I'll mark the title [closed] if I make a deal.

Edit: Alternatively, if you're in Dallas, I can probably do an in person exchange.

Got the notice that my claim went thru, too. Looks like tomorrow's the big day.

Got paid out and transaction confirmed in the first round in less than ten minutes. Throwing in for another round before I knock off for the night. Go for it! Almost nothing to lose.