What happens if Mt.Gox is attacked?

[Abdussamad]

Actually it could happen to any exchanger but Mt. Gox is a particularly attractive target. Mt. Gox boasts that 80% of BTC transactions take place there. So what happens if:

- Governments attack Mt. Gox - Mt. Gox is based in Japan and registered as an IT services company. Yet, its business is more financial services than IT services. I am sure the regulations in Japan for financial service providers/money service providers is a lot tougher than IT service providers. So the Japanese govt. has plenty of grounds to raid Mt. Gox. It could do that of its own volition or at the behest of the US or other governments. What will happen if Japanese police raid Mt. Gox?

- A DDoS on Mt. Gox servers by private individuals or state sponsored entities.

If Mt. Gox goes down BTC will surely crash 90% or so in value. What is there to prevent this sort of thing happening?

The point I am trying to make is that the gatekeepers of the fiat currency systems can take down BTC exchangers at any time they like. Without exchangers BTC is worthless!

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[Lethn]

MTGOX has already been attacked a couple of times as far as I'm aware, the price crashed but then it gained again.

[Gator-hex]

Yes, they should address this problem, they say bitcoin is decentralized but the exchange value against other currencies isn't. 

[whitenight639]

Yes, they should address this problem, they say bitcoin is decentralized but the exchange value against other currencies isn't. 

There are other exchange (technically more capable) they would absorb the business.

The different exchanges have different exchange rates which are normally very close to mt gox, so if mt gox dissapeared 2moz then the other ones will take the business and everything will carry on. It's a shame that mt gox is idolised and used to quote the price of Btc when it dosnt have to be the case.

[Abdussamad]

Yes, they should address this problem, they say bitcoin is decentralized but the exchange value against other currencies isn't. 

There are other exchange (technically more capable) they would absorb the business.

The different exchanges have different exchange rates which are normally very close to mt gox, so if mt gox dissapeared 2moz then the other ones will take the business and everything will carry on. It's a shame that mt gox is idolised and used to quote the price of Btc when it dosnt have to be the case.

Yeah but first Mt. Gox will be targeted and then the others one by one. All of the exchangers are dependent on the banking system which governments control. All that needs to be done is for the governments to freeze their bank accounts and they'll all collapse one by one.

[MagicBit15]

It's happened a few times, still up and running, i'd worry about other exchanges to be honest.

[Endgame]

In regards to ddos, most of the exchanges are getting pretty used to dealing with this. Mt.Gox uses prolexic for ddos protection, and it seems to be working because they are very rarely down.

[whitenight639]

Yes, they should address this problem, they say bitcoin is decentralized but the exchange value against other currencies isn't. 

There are other exchange (technically more capable) they would absorb the business.

The different exchanges have different exchange rates which are normally very close to mt gox, so if mt gox dissapeared 2moz then the other ones will take the business and everything will carry on. It's a shame that mt gox is idolised and used to quote the price of Btc when it dosnt have to be the case.

Yeah but first Mt. Gox will be targeted and then the others one by one. All of the exchangers are dependent on the banking system which governments control. All that needs to be done is for the governments to freeze their bank accounts and they'll all collapse one by one.

there are places in the world that take a more lax view of financial concerns in their country, anyway Bitcoins can be printed and traded locally, google localbitcoin.

If there is demand for something then and it makes money for people / businesses / countries then it will survive- just look at the drug trade, bitcoin is better than drugs because it is more accessable and you won't turn into one of those before /after meth pictures :-D

[Abdussamad]

there are places in the world that take a more lax view of financial concerns in their country, anyway Bitcoins can be printed and traded locally, google localbitcoin.

If there is demand for something then and it makes money for people / businesses / countries then it will survive- just look at the drug trade, bitcoin is better than drugs because it is more accessable and you won't turn into one of those before /after meth pictures :-D

First of all bitcoin is a currency and it is only in demand if it can be exchanged for goods and services. It can only be exchanged for goods if it can be converted into a fiat currency. That can only happen if governments allow it. So it is very different from the drug trade.

The other thing is that you are wrong about countries allowing money laundering. No country in the world allows that. Every country takes its orders from the US and Europe. They can shut you out of the worldwide financial system and they've already to done that to Iran. Iran has a hell of time selling its oil now. And unlike bitcoin oil is indisputably valuable. So it can be done and has been done before.

[Paleus]

I would assume if Mt. Gox is hacked, the price will crash much like it did previously.  However, this drop in price will likely lead to a rebound due to the misconception that the currency itself is being attacked.  If the exhange platform goes down that is simply a distribution mediary of the currency, not a hit on the currency itself.  The way I see it, one of the few flaws that Bitcoin has is the ability to be hacked, the price will then fall, and knowledgeable investors will be able to acquire currency at a discounted price.

[whitenight639]

there are places in the world that take a more lax view of financial concerns in their country, anyway Bitcoins can be printed and traded locally, google localbitcoin.

If there is demand for something then and it makes money for people / businesses / countries then it will survive- just look at the drug trade, bitcoin is better than drugs because it is more accessable and you won't turn into one of those before /after meth pictures :-D

First of all bitcoin is a currency and it is only in demand if it can be exchanged for goods and services. It can only be exchanged for goods if it can be converted into a fiat currency. That can only happen if governments allow it. So it is very different from the drug trade.

The other thing is that you are wrong about countries allowing money laundering. No country in the world allows that. Every country takes its orders from the US and Europe. They can shut you out of the worldwide financial system and they've already to done that to Iran. Iran has a hell of time selling its oil now. And unlike bitcoin oil is indisputably valuable. So it can be done and has been done before.

First of all- you do not have to change bitcoin into fiat, there are many many places that accept bitcoin directly online (bitmit.net for just one example) and if fiat were to see hyper-inflation which is very likely then I am sure people in real bricks n mortor shops will consider alternatives such as bitcoin, silver, gold etc.

Demand, there is demand for bitcoin atm as you can see from the price the trend of the price of Btc and also Mt goxs' order book. Not everything happens because governments allow it, if governments pass ridiculous laws they are ignored by the people,(people don't seem to have a problem exchanging fiat for illegal substances, yet this is prohibited). yes the government exercise great control over financial and business matters but this is because of tax and other license revenues the government collects, if you are not a operating in "their" system, if you do not register a company it is different / easier (I'm not going to elaborate here).

I never said money laundering, I was referring to regulation of financial activities such as currency / stock / shares / comodoties exchanges, If bitcoin became a massive worldwide currency countries would be fighting for exchanges to be in there country so they could tax it. I don't know about Irans Oil i thought they were doing fine supplying it to the chinese, didn't it even turn out that it was being used in american military vehicles?

As for money laundering many countries allow it, if you work for HSBC.

You are right about potential pressures that will arise from the central banks and governments will be interesting. The Bank for international settlements is the Chuck norris of banks and they won't like copertition with a system they can't controll.