$55 - really? Really? Really?

[opentoe]

Seriously, what the hell is going on? I feel VERY lucky. On one hand I was able to sell my main coin supply on the 9th I think it was for like $247 / each. I refresh clean once in a while and that was the time. I told myself, once I see it go over $250, sell it all. I sold them all that day and a couple days later money was deposited into my bank account. The next day coin started to drop big time. Most places ceased operations, stopped business or just suspended trading until further notice. Then I had another whole wallet which I kind of forget about and tried really hard to sell those but no such luck. I pretty much have to hang on to them for a while and see what happens. My stupid fault for not remembering. That's a bad thing to do in this business.

Sorry, just wanted to post something positive in my world for once. I rarely EVER get to do that.

So what the hell is making coin go from $250 to $55 in 2 days or less? Yes, you can respond with sarcastic, anal retentive childish remarks if it makes you feel better.

[1714888356]

1714888356

[onesalt]

Bitcoin is a giant ponzi scheme and the only winners are the ones that get out first. After that, it crashes.

[Blazr]

Don't take the price seriously at the moment, MtGox (the largest exchange by far, at one point handled 80% of BTC trade) has stopped trading due to massive volume from new users. The price will recover, perhaps not as high as it was before though.

[Blazr]

For anyone who still thinks this is a DDOS or a real crash, I urge you to read the latest update from MtGox:

From mtgox facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MtGox/posts/455962117821534

Code:

Hi everyone, just a quick update on the situation and what happened last night.

First of all we would like to reassure you but no we were not last night victim of a DDoS but instead victim of our own 
success!

Indeed the rather astonishing amount of new account opened in the last few days added to the existing one plus the 
number of trade made a huge impact on the overall system that started to lag. As expected in such situation people 
started to panic, started to sell Bitcoin in mass (Panic Sale) resulting in an increase of trade that ultimately froze 
the trade engine! 

To give you an idea of how impressive things were here are some numbers that we would love to share with you guys: 
- The number of trades executed triple in the last 24hrs. 
- The number of new account opened went from 60k for March alone to 75k new account created for the first few days
of April! We now have roughly 20,000 new accounts created each day.

Due to these facts we have been busy working on improving things since last week and our team has been working 
around the clock to improve Mt.Gox to catch up with the demand. We will continue to release several updates today 
and in the coming few days to improve our system overall performance.

Also please note that we may have to close the exchange for two hours in the next 12 to 24hrs to add several new 
servers to our system.

Thank you for your understanding and continuous support!

[Acesbomb]

The dog ate my homework?

[ex-trader]

Bitcoin is a giant ponzi scheme and the only winners are the ones that get out first. After that, it crashes.

Rubbish - provided that Bitcoin ultimately becomes a proven mass-adopted tool for exchange, then it has a clear value and is not a ponzi scheme.

However it's value as it was traded far exceeded it's current requirement or justification and a correction was inevitable. Where it's long term value goes will depend on it's success at it's main function. In the short-term fear is the driver (fear of losing everything by the holders and recent buyers vs fear of not owning the upside).

[aurora]

Don't take the price seriously at the moment, MtGox (the largest exchange by far, at one point handled 80% of BTC trade) has stopped trading due to massive volume from new users. The price will recover, perhaps not as high as it was before though.

do you really think after gox is open people will rush and buy coins? goood luck

[DrG]

$38 is the new $2 

[johnyj]

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

[MarKusRomanus]

Bitcoin is a giant ponzi scheme and the only winners are the ones that get out first. After that, it crashes.

Your definition of a ponzi scheme would apply to any commodity/stock that sees a large swell then crash.  I think you're looking for the term, pump-and-dump. It's not clear what exactly happened here and everyone is trying make predictions about what is next.  This is so unprecedented that I have to admit, nothing will surprise me now.
Either way its not a ponzi scheme.

[Mike Christ]

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

That's interesting.  So bitcoin was a lot more profitable than it was supposed to be?

[Unacceptable]

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

I have 3.2GH mining @ .18BTC per 24hrs @ .12kwh.My bill is approx $150 more while mining,so $150/6.3BTC per month=$23.80 per BTC.Thats what its worth to me 

[revans]

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

A non fungible commodity like gold or oil cannot drop below their price of production. I am uncertain as to why you apply this same logic to bitcoins, which are simply one of many fiat based mediums of exchange. The fact that you decide to waste CPU cycles to mine bitcoins does not somehow confer any underlying economic validity on that activity; when bitcoin crashes you can't exchange those wasted cpu cycles for something useful. When the tulip market crashed tulips fell well below their cost of production because one the speculative bubble burst their commodity value was deemed to be effectively zero.

[Mike Christ]

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

I have 3.2GH mining @ .18BTC per 24hrs @ .12kwh.My bill is approx $150 more while mining,so $150/6.3BTC per month=$23.80 per BTC.Thats what its worth to me  

Hmm!  And the price of BTC just happens to be right around here; wonder if it'll drop further than $23?  Miners aren't going to sell at a loss, after all.

[revans]

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

Someone is dumping hard to drive price down in order to buy a lot at low price

The electricity cost for GPU miner is the fundamental factor for bitcoin price, currently 1G hash gives 0.06 bitcoin per day, using $3 electricity, that is about 50 USD for 1 bitcoin

I have 3.2GH mining @ .18BTC per 24hrs @ .12kwh.My bill is approx $150 more while mining,so $150/6.3BTC per month=$23.80 per BTC.Thats what its worth to me  

Hmm!  And the price of BTC just happens to be right around here; wonder if it'll drop further than $23?  Miners aren't going to sell at a loss, after all.

Oh really? So nobody involved in speculative market activity every accepts a loss eh;  tell me how that works out for you.

[MatTheCat]

Wait Wait Wait.

MtGox tells me the current price is $124.

Where is everyone getting $55 from?

Is MTGox actually down and posting a false price to placate anyone not in the know?

[alexh]

Some exchanges display that low price but not many are actually selling btc for that price.

[Mike Christ]

Oh really? So nobody involved in speculative market activity every accepts a loss eh;  tell me how that works out for you.

Well, it would work out pretty bad, actually.  If I had product X and it was costing me more to produce it than it was to sell it, I would stop producing product X.  Since Unacceptable is producing them at a cost of $23.80 per coin, he would attempt to sell them preferably above this price.  If not, he wouldn't sell them until the cost went back up.

Now, somebody who bought product X might see the use in selling it to prevent further loss.  But if he didn't know what it was costing to make it, he could sell it to you for a nickel and wouldn't know the difference.

[revans]

Wait Wait Wait.

MtGox tells me the current price is $124.

Where is everyone getting $55 from?

Is MTGox actually down and posting a false price to placate anyone not in the know?

MTGox has shut up shop to try and protect the bitcoin price, but price discovers is occurring on other exchanges down to sub $50

[onesalt]

Don't mind the ponzi troll. The price drop is deliberate market manipulation, whether its an attack or just a speculator manipulating the market for his own gain is debatable but whats certain is anyone selling at these prices is playing into his hands.

Crashes like this have happened multiple times and the only people who win are the people who cash out at the point before it drops. Everyone else effectively loses. As with a ponzi scheme the only people who "win" are the people who put money in early and get money out early before the entire thing becomes uneconomical.

Screaming "UGH TROLL!! TROLL!" just because you don't agree with someone doesn't make you smart or correct, either, by the way.