Why did bitcoin go down?

[deathcode]

Very simple poll

[Razick]

I voted other because I think it's a mix:

1) There did seem to be some DDOSing, but it was also just a lot of traffic due to panic.
2) Bubble-burst: not quite, but it is a... (see below)
3) Massive sell-off/correction indicating how delicate the market is becoming.

By the way... we lost about half of our capitalization at one point, we're not out of the woods yet. This could be a double top in the making. Be careful!

[mgio]

There likely was a DOS, a massive one. That triggered panic selling that caused the bubble to burst. The more bitcoin went up, the more people were worried about it and it only took a DOS to start panic selling.

I think people are going to be more wary of bitcoin until there are more exchanges out there that deal with more volume. I saw in the news a startup was just funded to launch one. Hopefully they can get it up and running quickly.

I don't think this is the end of bitcoin, I think we will bounce back, but we might not see $250 again for a bit.

[middlemarkal]

Some early adopter dumped a lot of coins, and now it's backup over 200 

[Lethn]

I think this may have been panic selling triggered by all the trolling from supposed 'expert' traders claiming that Bitcoin is a bubble, it doesn't look like a correction to me, if a correction does happen though, I don't necessarily think this will be a bad thing at all.

[porcupine87]

I think this may have been panic selling triggered by all the trolling from supposed 'expert' traders claiming that Bitcoin is a bubble, it doesn't look like a correction to me, if a correction does happen though, I don't necessarily think this will be a bad thing at all.

No it is 150$.
So let me get this straight: 1 BTC is selling for 3$ to 10$ for 18 months, relativ stable. Then there came the middle of Jan 2013. Then within 2 months the price suddenly triples to 30-40$. And then, within 2 weeks the price triples again to 100$. And then, within two days the prices triples almost again, then within hours the price drops back to 100$, then within Minutes back to 200$.

This is a big rally and I'm on board with my 0,5BTC :-)

[MatTheCat]

Oh definitie DoS attack for sure!!! That is sooooo obvious!!!

DoS and negative spin causing panic selling of weak hands!!!

Certainly nothing to do with speculative bubble profit taking, panic selling, and certainly nothing to do with market manipulation.

The fundamentals of Bitcoin are too strong. The world is changing. Bitcoin is going to make me very very rich free the world from the shackles of central banks and the governments they control. Why would the existing financial establishment want to lose money making Bitcoin crash, when they could make money investing in it. Bitcoin is the solution that those central bankers trying their best to fix the economy have been looking for. If you disagree with me, then you are an idiot!

Nothing to see here people, business as usual, kindly move along to the Mt Gox exchange and keep buying in at any price!

[pretendo]

aren't 1 and 3 the same?

[MatTheCat]

aren't 1 and 3 the same?

No, one implies a mere hiccup towards deathcode's projected profit margins, the other implies that the game is up and now is time to maximise the reduced but still obscene profit margins.

[pretendo]

aren't 1 and 3 the same?

No, one implies a mere hiccup towards deathcode's projected profit margins, the other implies that the game is up and now is time to maximise the reduced but still obscene profit margins.

when a bubble bursts it is a correction

[deathcode]

aren't 1 and 3 the same?

I thought about it for a while before separating those concepts. A bubble and a correction are different in my book. I think in my opinion when a bubble burst the. Price should go back to the beginning of the bubble. This was not the case. A correction is whe. There's a spike that is not justified and the. A profit taking takes place and the price is adjusted to real values. This is just my opinion and conceptually I could be wrong though.
To me, what happened today was a huge DoS not only against mtgox, but also other exchanges and even bitcointalk! Every site related to bitcoins was somewhat slow.
I think DoS is the bug cause. We need to start isolating the exchanges and the use of brokers could be an alternative.

[Tonko]

I don't buy it.

Massive DDOS doesn't cause a lot (or just a few) of people to decide to sell a huge volume.

We had DDOSes before and it merely made it slower to either purchase or sell the coin.

We had big volume dumps before big DDOSes, it was just lower price and lower volatility.

[mco65]

Mere speculation here but BTC is still a thin niche market and there could be a hand full of Big time BTC holders/traders colluding to drive the price up and sell off...

not saying its true just pointing out a possible scenerio.

[solomon]

I don't buy it.

Massive DDOS doesn't cause a lot (or just a few) of people to decide to sell a huge volume.

We had DDOSes before and it merely made it slower to either purchase or sell the coin.

We had big volume dumps before big DDOSes, it was just lower price and lower volatility.

Ddos causes lag and failure of bitcoin exchanges, and initial sell off of the traders anticipating the drop. This drop scares the weakest hands who scramble to log in and sell, increasing lag and so on in a feedback loop.

[davidorentol]

Bubble burst

[Tonko]

Ddos causes lag and failure of bitcoin exchanges, and initial sell off of the traders anticipating the drop. This drop scares the weakest hands who scramble to log in and sell, increasing lag and so on in a feedback loop.

Well, to be sure we will have to see MtGox trade log. Since there are 7 million dormant coins out there, according to paper by Ron & Shamir, some entity's big profit taking is entirely a possibility. Hell, I would do it if I could. If I had a million, not to sell at least 200,000 at these prices? A Ferrari today is better than Ferrari in a year, maybe.

The rest is then just a noise from small, scared hands.

[shibaji]

It is the "other", obviously. BTC is in media and big guys want in with cheaper price. Whoever holds on, the real rise will come after this. I watch a journalist (read paid sockpuppet), who writes bad stuff about stocks which synchronously dips without reason, and then corrects in few days. He wrote about bitcoin in same tone about a day two back.

[Razick]

Oh definitie DoS attack for sure!!! That is sooooo obvious!!!

DoS and negative spin causing panic selling of weak hands!!!

Certainly nothing to do with speculative bubble profit taking, panic selling, and certainly nothing to do with market manipulation.

The fundamentals of Bitcoin are too strong. The world is changing. Bitcoin is going to make me very very rich free the world from the shackles of central banks and the governments they control. Why would the existing financial establishment want to lose money making Bitcoin crash, when they could make money investing in it. Bitcoin is the solution that those central bankers trying their best to fix the economy have been looking for. If you disagree with me, then you are an idiot!

Nothing to see here people, business as usual, kindly move along to the Mt Gox exchange and keep buying in at any price!

+1 lol.

[Tonko]

Oh definitie DoS attack for sure!!! That is sooooo obvious!!!

DoS and negative spin causing panic selling of weak hands!!!

Certainly nothing to do with speculative bubble profit taking, panic selling, and certainly nothing to do with market manipulation.

The fundamentals of Bitcoin are too strong. The world is changing. Bitcoin is going to make me very very rich free the world from the shackles of central banks and the governments they control. Why would the existing financial establishment want to lose money making Bitcoin crash, when they could make money investing in it. Bitcoin is the solution that those central bankers trying their best to fix the economy have been looking for. If you disagree with me, then you are an idiot!

Nothing to see here people, business as usual, kindly move along to the Mt Gox exchange and keep buying in at any price!

+1 lol.

LOL, reminds me of good ole' 2000 and Yahoo penny stocks bulletin boards.

[Tonko]

No worries, crap like this will save us:

http://news.yahoo.com/bitcoin-hacker-currency-bursts-mainstream-222018978--finance.html