We can breath now.

[Adrian-x]

If the free market is healthy it shouldn't stabilise until the coins are distributed among all the participants in the economy. (IE. The price should stabilise when Bitcoin adoption is complete)

There are no free lunches, all Bitcoin nouveau riche, including me, are parasites on the Bitcoin economy.

A stable price before full adoption is reflective of an artificial balance, and implies supply and demand will have no affect on the Bitcoin economy.   

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[Adrian-x]

Could the DoS attach actually be all the new users trying to login at the same time?

[phlogistonq]

Stability will come with maturation.
The market is still tiny, where even single individuals dumping or buying their moderate fortunes can drive the price up or down a few dollars. It takes only a few thousand individuals together to drive the price up or down 10-20% in a matter of hours.

With a much bigger market, we will get more stability.

Secondly, in this early phase of mass growth, stability will never happen. The price should in fact increase at a dramatic rate, as it does. The whole world is learning about bitcoins and jumping in for various reasons (ideals, quick profit, etc). The rate may feel uncomfortable, but it will stabilize eventually. Probably, we will overshoot a stable value at first, and oscillate around it for a bit at a large scale (as we do now on a smaller scale after every spike/dip), but eventually, we you should settle around a more or less stable price eventually. This moment is still years away though.

[coin_toss]

Could the DoS attach actually be all the new users trying to login at the same time?

I'm pretty sure gox could handle the traffic if that was all it was. More likely it is some traders looking to make quick profits by shutting gox down temporarily.

[ErisDiscordia]

Don't question deathcode's wishful thinking/paradigms/pseudo knowledge!

If you do, then it is because you are an idiot that knows nothing about Bitcoin!

Instead, you should just accept the reassurances of the most arrogant pig headed clown on the whole forum (with a nose made perfect for being punched, may I add). If he says everything is just fine, then everything is just fine! Understand?

So your contribution to the forum is now following deathcode around and calling him names?

As for stability of Bitcoin prices I think simple maturity will do wonders for stability. Each time some early adopter/big hoarder decides to cash out and drops a big amount of BTC on the exchanges, it gets divided between more and more people. Less people with comparatively big holdings of BTC --> the less volatility. Also the bigger the market cap, the less of a hiccup caused by someone deciding to buy a huge amount.

Meanwhile Gox needs to get its shit together and improve their engine, other exchanges need to step up so we have a bit more healthy competition.

The best option imo would be a trustworthy method of direct P2P exchange. No idea how to pull this off, though. Maybe a crowdfunded public exchange (as has been mentioned in wall observer thread) would do the trick, but it would still represent a certain degree of centralization. Best to just provide a way how to connect buyers/sellers and let them figure out how to do their transactions themselves.

[Adrian-x]

There are no free lunches, all Bitcoin nouveau riche, including me, are parasites on the Bitcoin economy.

I agree. The price will stabilize when it will be high enough for YOU to sell most of your coins. It will stabilize when YOU will seriously consider buying this Ferrari you used to look at on magazines, or any other stuff bitcoin early adopters can buy today.

Just for the record I was grouping myself with the parasites, I dumped most of my coins for an average of $13

[myrkul]

Or is it the other way around?

Hey man!

Don't question deathcode's wishful thinking/paradigms/pseudo knowledge!

If you do, then it is because you are an idiot that knows nothing about Bitcoin!

Instead, you should just accept the reassurances of the most arrogant pig headed clown on the whole forum (with a nose made perfect for being punched, may I add). If he says everything is just fine, then everything is just fine! Understand?

Prove me wrong once! and if you're the violent type I guess I'm touched a nerve or something uh?

The beauty of making unprovable claims is that you can't be proven wrong, either.

[mobodick]

If the free market is healthy it shouldn't stabilise until the coins are distributed among all the participants in the economy. (IE. The price should stabilise when Bitcoin adoption is complete)

There are no free lunches, all Bitcoin nouveau riche, including me, are parasites on the Bitcoin economy.

A stable price before full adoption is reflective of an artificial balance, and implies supply and demand will have no affect on the Bitcoin economy.   

Bitcoin economy by itself is a parasite of the fiat economy so i don't see your point.

[myrkul]

Or is it the other way around?

Hey man!

Don't question deathcode's wishful thinking/paradigms/pseudo knowledge!

If you do, then it is because you are an idiot that knows nothing about Bitcoin!

Instead, you should just accept the reassurances of the most arrogant pig headed clown on the whole forum (with a nose made perfect for being punched, may I add). If he says everything is just fine, then everything is just fine! Understand?

Prove me wrong once! and if you're the violent type I guess I'm touched a nerve or something uh?

The beauty of making unprovable claims is that you can't be proven wrong, either.

None of my claims are unprovable.

Then prove to me that the DoS caused a panic sell.

[Korbman]

I'm not sure any of the options will lead to complete stabilization, though I'm not arguing that it won't help in the long run.

My thought is that Bitcoin will stabilize when there are more Bitcoins on the market. For example, the vast majority of people are holding onto their coins instead of trading. If you were to hypothetically sell off 500,000 Bitcoins all at once at the lowest price right now, you'd cover just about every major Bid (under Mt. Gox anyway)...yet that 500k is only, what, 4.5% of all Bitcoins that have ever been created so far?

The more coins on the market, the harder it becomes to create the wild swings we've been seeing.

[myrkul]

The beauty of making unprovable claims is that you can't be proven wrong, either.

None of my claims are unprovable.

Then prove to me that the DoS caused a panic sell.

Read this (if you haven't already): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=166578
Are they lying? that's the part that can't be proven, however, I don't think there's a need for it.
You can believe their statement or not, but it's there.

Let's assume that they're telling the truth, as they see it. What did they say?

It is not yet clear who is behind this DDoS and we may never know, but these actions seem to have two major purposes:

2.   Abuse the system for profit.
Attackers wait until the price of Bitcoins reaches a certain value, sell, destabilize the exchange, wait for everybody to panic-sell their Bitcoins, wait for the price to drop to a certain amount, then stop the attack and start buying as much as they can. Repeat this two or three times like we saw over the past few days and they profit.

So the attacker sells a large number of coins, then destabilizes the exchange. Is it the original sell-off which triggers the panic sell, or is it the destabilization? Might the destabilization actually be harming the goals of the supposed attackers, by hampering others who also want to sell as fast as they can?

And regardless, This doesn't constitute "proof" at best it is "supporting evidence," but not proof. It's not even facts from Gox, just their theory.

Do I need to define "proof" for you?

[myrkul]

You're correct about the statement of this being supporting evidence. Finding "proof" per se in a situation like this is not easy, however, they (MTGox) know way more than you and I, they have logs, they probably do a lot of BI and analytics in the background to keep an eye on their transactions and find unusual patterns of buying/selling and many other trends, so their assertion  is by far more educated than yours and mine, mine being based on their statements.
Does that make sense?
Addressing your previous comment, please read this:
"Mt.Gox has been suffering from its worst trading lag ever, 502 errors, and at one point some users were not able to log in their account. The culprit is a major DDoS attack against Mt.Gox."
I think that statement should answer yours. sell-off occurs after the destabilization I don't see a double meaning in their words.

You have proven two facts:
There was a panic sell.
There was (and presumably still is) a DDoS attack on Gox.

What you have not proven, and this is crucial, because it is your claim, is the causal link between the two. By their own statements, the sell-off starts before the destabilization. Unless you can prove the destabilization made the sell-off worse, I'll have to assume that it is equally probable that the instability of the trade platform reduced the severity of the sell-off, by hampering other panic-sellers.

Of course finding proof is "not easy." You're making unprovable claims.

[myrkul]

You're correct about the statement of this being supporting evidence. Finding "proof" per se in a situation like this is not easy, however, they (MTGox) know way more than you and I, they have logs, they probably do a lot of BI and analytics in the background to keep an eye on their transactions and find unusual patterns of buying/selling and many other trends, so their assertion  is by far more educated than yours and mine, mine being based on their statements.
Does that make sense?
Addressing your previous comment, please read this:
"Mt.Gox has been suffering from its worst trading lag ever, 502 errors, and at one point some users were not able to log in their account. The culprit is a major DDoS attack against Mt.Gox."
I think that statement should answer yours. sell-off occurs after the destabilization I don't see a double meaning in their words.

You have proven two facts:
There was a panic sell.
There was (and presumably still is) a DDoS attack on Gox.

What you have not proven, and this is crucial, because it is your claim, is the causal link between the two. By their own statements, the sell-off starts before the destabilization. Unless you can prove the destabilization made the sell-off worse, I'll have to assume that it is equally probable that the instability of the trade platform reduced the severity of the sell-off, by hampering other panic-sellers.

Of course finding proof is "not easy." You're making unprovable claims.

I'm not sure you read correctly or maybe, I didn't read correctly, but can you point out exactly WHERE in their statement it's implied or directly stated that the sell-off started BEFORE the destabilization?

Sure, I'll highlight it for you:

2.   Abuse the system for profit.
Attackers wait until the price of Bitcoins reaches a certain value, sell, destabilize the exchange, wait for everybody to panic-sell their Bitcoins, wait for the price to drop to a certain amount, then stop the attack and start buying as much as they can. Repeat this two or three times like we saw over the past few days and they profit.

It's clear that this is a time-ordered list. The attacker:
1. waits until the price of Bitcoins reaches a certain value
2. sells
3. destabilizes the exchange
4. waits for everybody to panic-sell their Bitcoins
5. waits for the price to drop to a certain amount
6. stops the attack
7. starts buying as much as they can

The selloff begins, by definition, with that first big sell. Now, you tell me, was the panic generated by the sell, or the destabilization? Did the destabilization make the panic worse, or did it prevent sellers from making their transactions, thus reducing the severity?

Also, between your assumptions and their assumptions, I think everyone will choose theirs. I stated earlier, they have more data to make "assumptions" than you do, if anything, their assumptions have way more supporting data.

And yet, they're not even saying what you are: that the DDoS caused a panic sell.

[cbeast]

We need a closed exchange open only to brokers to eliminate day trading.

"Tradehill Exchange Adds Dark Pools Of Bitcoin Liquidity"
Jon Matonis
Forbes, 28 March 2013

www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/03/28/tradehill-exchange-adds-dark-pools-of-bitcoin-liquidity/

MtGox would be smart to follow this path. Let BTC-E, Bitstamp, Virtex, and the other small exchanges bear the brunt against the 50 cent army.

[Jobe7]

Or is it the other way around?

Hey man!

Don't question deathcode's wishful thinking/paradigms/pseudo knowledge!

If you do, then it is because you are an idiot that knows nothing about Bitcoin!

Instead, you should just accept the reassurances of the most arrogant pig headed clown on the whole forum (with a nose made perfect for being punched, may I add). If he says everything is just fine, then everything is just fine! Understand?

Prove me wrong once! and if you're the violent type I guess I'm touched a nerve or something uh?

The beauty of making unprovable claims is that you can't be proven wrong, either.

None of my claims are unprovable.

Then prove to me that the DoS caused a panic sell.

Read this (if you haven't already): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=166578
Are they lying? that's the part that can't be proven, however, I don't think there's a need for it.
You can believe their statement or not, but it's there.

Sooooo.....

Still waiting to see the PROOF that there was panic selling. Because as far as I can see, it's been the usual weekend selling, BUT this weekend the value has STILL increased. Regardless of the retarded ddos attacks.

[dacoinminster]

Stability will come to the bitcoin economy via distributed exchange of colored bitcoins and other similar currencies built on top of bitcoin (and thus driving up bitcoin values even further(. I personally doubt whether bitcoin itself will ever be stable enough to use for your groceries.

[tonto]

I'm still not breathing; bought in at 138. 

Relax, you're not the first to buy in at or near a short-term peak. Long term, you'll be fine.

This.  I'm actually going to start putting some (not all) of my 401k allocation into bitcoins.  I'll purchase each payday, and that might mean purchasing at new highs.  But I also know that these "new highs" will net me awesome gains down the road (much better than my 401k ever will).

[myrkul]

Also, what if you sell and the DoS fails? then you sold, and the price goes up and you're screwed...

This is a danger with any attempt to panic the market.

Again, you were assuming all this time, that there was an initial BIG SELL at first, and I'm telling you that that's not the case.

Now that is a provable assertion. So prove it.

[Arzack]

Stability will come to the bitcoin economy via distributed exchange of colored bitcoins and other similar currencies built on top of bitcoin (and thus driving up bitcoin values even further(. I personally doubt whether bitcoin itself will ever be stable enough to use for your groceries.

Unless we make bitcoin "credit cards".

[Kazu]

Sorry to be a buzz kill, but what Bitcoin needs for stability is people buying shit in Bitcoin. Which we have, to an extent. We need moar of dat.

The more people switch to BTC fully, the less need there is to trade BTC to fiat and back over and over, the less need there is for mtgox and friends.