I was contemplating doing this - but the 10% haircut looks still cheaper than going through a legal proceeding - so I too that route. I have to add that MtGox is kind of prodding users to do that - they eliminate the most angry guys this way (but it is also possible that they are actually making money on arbitraging - so they want the difference to be big).
They also make a further 1% in commision (1/2 each for buyer and seller) on the last trade when people give up and turn their fiat into btc. It's like getting slammed on the backside by the door on the way out of the complaints dept after being stonewalled. |
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Definitely is some decent publicity, however the guy being interviewed from mashable wasn't very well versed in bitcoin at all. Not sure why they wouldn't bring someone far more involved in bitcoin.
+1 He can't spell "MtGox", he doesn't know that block reward is not 50 BTC anymore. Probably he is an economist on-call that did some BTC "research" on his way to the show  He was probably doing his BTC "research" on his cell-phone during the show, when the camera was turned to the airhead for her vacuous input. |
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Agreed. Cecil must have had a blank moment. Perhaps an apple fell onto his head and he accidentally pasted a paragraph of utter bilgewater from a Krugman column he was reading for laughs a little earlier:
One of the strengths of bitcoins, namely that their quantity is limited, is also a weakness. The money supply has to grow more or less in proportion to the underlying economy lest we have deflation and depression. Regulating the money supply is why you need central bankers, feckless though they sometimes are. For that reason bitcoins as currently constituted will never replace government-backed money.
Cecil. Please delete this horseshit, as leaving it on your website could cause contagion and drop yours and your readers' IQs by 90 points!
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Whats the bitcoin alternative to a direct debit?
This goes partway towards it: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Payment_Requesthttps://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0070So every month a utility company could issue payment requests to their customers. A customer can easily action the payment from their bitcoin wallet. A completely automated system would need improved wallet software where certain historical payees (like the utility company) would be pre-authorized up to a certain BTC limit by the wallet holder. The payment request might arrive on the 1st with the meter reading and usage info giving time for the customer to validate the account. Assuming here the due date is the 20th, and the wallet software would also be set to not respond to the request until the due date. If the utility company makes an error, the customer would be refunded or credited for the next account, as is normal in the fiat system. |
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A mistrustful part of me suspects that MtGox is making huge profits arbitraging the price difference themselves, which gives them a perverse motivation to keep withdrawals slow.
Unfortunately I have a feeling you might be spot on with that theory... If anyone was making huge profits on the arb then the gap would close to a few dollars. It isn't, which means that MtGox is under huge stress trying to do any transfers. The last thing MtGox wants is a crippled business. The long-term profits from commission far outweigh any temporary games trading the arb on their own account. They are hemorrhaging market share by the day. They are in a fight for survival while the fiat banking system has a hobnailed boot on their windpipe. |
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Answer: FBI salaries, benefits, and ex-FBI retiree pensions (and the banks they use). They will all get some of the newly printed dollars first. When they spend the money then the private sector finally gets some of those dollars. |
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The reply that really matters is the one which the Federal Reserve writes to the Senate. They will have the opposite imperative to claim that it is irrelevant. If the Fed talks up the "threat" of Bitcoin then that really will rocket this disruptive technology onto the front pages everywhere.
Unfortunately, like Tom's Illuminati, the secretive Fed would prefer its report to remain secret. Hopefully someone will dump it on Wikileaks.
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"THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS isn’t shy about naming Silk Road’s active ingredient: The cryptographic digital currency known as Bitcoin. “We’ve won the State’s War on Drugs because of Bitcoin,” he writes."
Sigh. With friends like this who needs enemies? .. and right as the NY and Senate investigations start. I wish DPR had just lurked in the shadows for all time. |
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A report that the chips have shipped... Avalon Batch #3 have just been delivered over the past week or two.
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It surprises me that people are still prepared to sell coins on Gox in return for their 'x-month IOU's' other than for short term speculating.
I wonder how long that will last
Yes. Those selling on Gox are mostly assuming that they can buy back lower on the dips or have JPY accounts and think they can get that out in good time. At some point a lot of fiat holders will be left holding the bag. Gox will either sort out its FinCen problems and return to business as usual, or be forced to shut up shop. In the latter case the trapped customers can get in the queue behind the Bitcoinica claimants for their fiat or coins. |
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Ha. You should see the 94 BTC someone once paid as a transaction fee: So, despite the block reward being >$1000, and not due for halving until 3.75 years time, fees are forced to do a moonshot.
That "moonshot" is because someone created a single transaction with 94BTC in fees: 13dffdaef097881acfe9bdb5e6338192242d80161ffec264ee61cf23bc9a1164Fees are rising, but they haven't spiked like you think they have. |
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Most people throughout history have never trusted governments to issue and control money, which is why gold, silver and copper were ideal for currency for so long. The level of trust required was minimal as the metal coin itself theoretically removed the need for trust. Even then most coins were progressively debased by governments. The 95% silver denarius in Julius Caesar's time became just 5% silver 300 years later.
The invention of paper money was soon followed by the invention of central banks and fractional reserve banking. An explosive combination. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz was an allegory protesting the demonetization of silver before 1900. The demonetization of gold in the 20th Century meant that the public were then forced to "trust" government issued currency. This trust has been totally abused, evidenced by rampant inflation, made infinitely easier through the invention of the electronic form of money for remote transactions, a life-blood of modern civilization.
What Bitcoin does is restore the basis for trust to be intrinsic to currency itself, like gold, but also encapsulating the essential advantages of electronic currency.
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Wall Street money flowing to Bitcoin?
how the hell can it be flowing into bitcoin when Gox isn't even processing deposits (albeit at a snail pace) Maybe Wall Street is not quite as dumb as we would like to think and have transferred their money into euros, onto Bitstamp (where coins are strangely very cheap ) and not only vacuumed up the asks but built a rather chunky bid wall. For the first time in weeks the bids outnumber the asks on Stamp. |
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We last saw >100k articles during the $266 peak week. Recently it has hovered around 30-50k articles. The NY and Senate investigations, Android wallet problem and pirate trial have created another storm of interest:  |
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