Yes, I realized this after I posted: 'asset' isn't the right word. My bad. But I'm sure you got the point though:

It does make a substantial difference whether they lost 80%, 40% or, as I claim, at most 5% of their total customers' funds, because:
- their ability to cover the loss is based on their revenue (and their company assets)
- their own revenue is based on their trading volume (and the market price, of course)
- which in turn is related to total customers' funds

So, the higher the share of customers' funds lost, the less likely is that a company will be able to refund it. That was the basic idea.

I'm not defending them, by the way: No idea why they had 19k coins in a hot wallet. Seems absolutely excessive. And unless they provide some very good information explaining the hack, how it came to it, and how they're improving their internal security from now on, I will leave Bitstamp behind as a customer.

That is, of course, assuming that I get my funds back. For all I know, this could still turn out to be another gox. I had a pretty high opinion of Bitstamp so far, and the fact that they have large outside investors is reassuring, but until I can log in again and trade or withdraw my funds, I remain extremely skeptic.

Read OP again. He basically said "Hey, look at the interesting function I found. Probably not much to it, but appreciate comments on it". That's more or less all. Unless I misunderstood something drastically, there are zero claims to accuracy, but perhaps the hope to do something useful with what he came up with. He's presenting sth and collecting thoughts, basically.

It's all speculation anyway, but keep in mind: 10-12% of their total BTC holdings represents only about half of that percentage of their /total/ holdings, probably less if the last orderbook sums are to be taken as representative.

Assuming the 19k btc loss is really the end of it, I'd be surprised if they lost more than 5% of their total assets. Pretty bad for a company, but not necessarily catastrophic.

+1. Would be interesting to see the results of a "backtest" where you apply the algorithm you described on initial segments of the exchange data, arbitrarily chosen, say: 2010-2011, 2010-2012, 2010-2013 and see what you get and how it compares to reality.

Nah... that one was pretty smart. The joke isn't about the exact implementation being identical but about ridiculously dumb beliefs by people, 70s programmers: "Our code will never have to work after date X", Bitcoiners/us: "We will never go below the previous ATH".

And btw, the "don't quote the trolls" rule is nearly meaningless: there are few posters that are universally considered content-free trolls. Except for the obvious newly registered spammers, most controversial posters are one guy's troll and another guy's jester.

That's some high quality, high effort stuff. I'm not even mad about the trolling

^ Wrong one. That's the old one, back from early 2013.

Got it as well. Bad news.

Email received as well. Not good, at all.

That's how I understood it as well, but it doesn't mesh with his (sub) 200 throw-over remarks on the same page.

Cryptic guy

Not sure I get the "buying frenzy" line.

Care to explain?

You understood that I was speculating myself, right? I don't work for Bitstamp.

Like I said, I believe larger withdrawals have to be confirmed manually. Depending on the time of the day you request it, it might take until the next working day for that to happen, although, I never had to wait that long.

If 90 minutes withdrawal time from an exchange is too much hassle for you, I suggest you don't leave your coins on the exchange in the first place. The blockchain is fast, human supervision & security, less so.

Yes, Jorge, I've read your unsubstantiated claim that you think it was single entity. More than once

Even if it was (hint: pure speculation), the point was whether anyone would be willing to buy in after the selling restriction. Apparently, someone was, to the tune of almost 8M USD.

EDIT: Or maybe I didn't get your point. Mine was: more than any selling restrictions, market cycles (and perhaps, insider information) seems to drive buying/selling of the fund in the recent past.

Good point. Short 70 cent.

Historical moment:

We went below previous all-time high after making a new one.

Keep this in mind when the hyper bulls come out again with their empty promises of "guaranteed growth" based on exponential trend projections in a year or so from now when^* the next serious rally takes place.


^* "If", if you prefer, but in my opinion, it's more a matter of "when".

I suspect that whoever is willing to put his (real ) money into something as speculative - potentially profitable, but extremely speculative - as Bitcoin is also willing to jump through the hoops to liquidate his position again.

I think the buying/selling is much stronger linked to the market cycles: major buys at the beginning of rallies (further fueling them), major sells before total breakdown, little movement in between. #justanopinion

That's a rhetorical question, right?


All of the buys below took place after this became an issue:

Huh, never actually kept my position a secret in the past, I'm just sometimes a bit secretive with my methods I suppose I'm in USD with the trading portion of my stash, but looking for a good entry point. Cold storage untouched.

"Long term success" is a pretty wide question, depends on what you'd consider a success. But if the question is narrowed down a bit, then: yes, I still think there is a solid chance that Bitcoin will become a useful financial tool (possibly more niche though than some are comfortable with) over the course of the next years, and price is likely to react accordingly. But neither do I think this (qualified) success is guaranteed, nor do I think it will get there on a smooth path.

The irony can't be lost on you, right?

I've been saying the same thing for more than a year now, like a broken record, on the way to the ATH and during the bear market alike: an asset that appreciates hugely in a short time is not a very good 'store of value', and one that loses 75% of its value in a year certainly isn't one either.

This is not to say Bitcoin cannot ever become one - just that, as it is now, with pretty wild swings in either direction, it isn't, even though some of the more, hm, brave Bitcoin supporters use it as if it were one, with the obvious consequences (i.e. if they "stored" early, major gains, if they "stored" within the last year, major losses)

Back from Christmas slash New Year's vacation, and this is what I return to? Great job guys

Well, at least volume is picking up again somewhat ^_^