Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[seldon]

Serious question: Would anyone use "GOX" if it was bought by a reputable company and re branded allowing limited customer withdrawals but with a guarantee that finds are safe. Then if they implemented full transparancy of user funds??

If the company is well known and can win back trust (e.g. by implementing a proof-of-ownership for all funds) I'm sure many people would. Also MK would need to be driven away with a large stick first.

[oda.krell]

At the time of the SR closure, the absolutely *dominant* sentiment among the pundits in here was that it will greatly depress price. Anyone who said differently was shouted down. Took a few days, and that sentiment very clearly changed.

I think "the pundits here" mostly have no clue what they are talking about or they are just plain out lying. Most of the things I say here get shouted down. For instance, if you currently say that MtGox demise is important, then you will probably get shouted down by the majority

So, to translate it to the current day situation: yes, I compare the two events in the sense that, at face value, you might naively say "oh, it's going to keep price down for months to come".
In reality, it will probably throw price down for some days, maybe weeks. And then, gradually, it'll be seen differently, as extremely good news.

It's really hard to understand your point. You are telling me, that because of the people here didn't see the SR demise as unimportant, then MtGox demise is also unimportant? Well, I just don't see the logic in that.

Just a few of those reasons, just from the top of my head: (1) the formerly largest exchange was run amateurishly, and was punished accordingly. (2) cheap mtgox coins that would have otherwise flooded the market are now unavailable to arbitrage down the price. (3) Mtgox investors will look to "replace" their coins (not all of them, of course. But those who *do* want to replace them will have to buy them again.

Questions that pop into my head: (1) Are the other exchanges honest or will they repeat the history of gox? (2) How can I know which exchange is honest and which is just building confidence for final strike (3) Could bitcoin be just a tool for those exchange owners to scam the general public?

These are serios questions that will be left unanswered and therefor will create distrust and uncertainty. For instance, I myself, am not as comfortable holding fiat in stamp as I was couple of months ago.
The demise of SR only hurt the BTC drug market, while the demise of MtGox will hurt the integrity of the entire bitcoin market system.

I sometimes have a hard time getting across my point because of my convoluted writing style. Apologies for that.

Here's my point, ultra condensed: Mtgox shutdown (in whatever form it'll happen) *does* matter. No question about that. But the question is *how* it will matter on which time frame.

Short term, it certainly will depress price (and did so already, yesterday for example). But I caution anyone who believes to know with certainty that it will depress prices for a long time. There are several plausible interpretation scenarios that will make mtgox closure *positive* in the long run, just like we know think of the SR closure as (obviously) a good thing.

Note that I'm personally not *sure* if mtgox closure will be seen as positive in the long run, but I see the real possibility for it. The market will ultimately decide, and I just mention the possibility that, in a year from now, we'll talk again about mtgox and everyone will go "Well, d'uh, of course it was good news. The worst run exchange in the BTC ecoystem *finally* went down. That's what brought us to the new ATH of 6000."

[dreamspark]

Serious question: Would anyone use "GOX" if it was bought by a reputable company and re branded allowing limited customer withdrawals but with a guarantee that finds are safe. Then if they implemented full transparancy of user funds??

If the company is well known and can win back trust (e.g. by implementing a proof-of-ownership for all funds) I'm sure many people would. Also MK would need to be driven away with a large stick first.

Well if the company is bought undoubtadley MK would be no where near it, I wouldn't be suprised if any new owners publicly slate him and what he's done ( if lost coins due to negligence turns out to be true).

With the massive customer base and amount of verified accounts it must be like a honey pot to many investors, one can only hope that someone is able to bail them out and an anouncement either way is made soon.

[mmitech]

in other Bitcoin related matter, Blockchain.info is being DDOS-ed and in there were 9 found blocks in only 20 minutes, how odd is that ?

[oda.krell]

So far the retracement is not unusual. Remember that silk road consolidated an entire week or so before finally going into a full breakout.

Also, the difference between now and silk road is we were just in a bear market in the middle of final capitulation, while silk road was during an uptrend. Prices attempted to rally here with a lot of force but were opposed by the large bear market counterforces that existed before the gox crash.  This was a rather odd way to end a capitulation and there might be more work to do to buy out all the capitulation coins.

Complete agreement. Bit of an unsatisfactory answer maybe, but "the next few 6h candles will decide how it'll resolve" is the best answer I think that can be given at the moment.

I'm directly comparing the end of the post-April 2013 downtrend (in early July 2013) to the situation now, on the 6h view, and there are a large number of similarities, but also a few differences -- in July 2013 CMF took a *sharp* swing upwards right around that time and didn't come back even as price retraced a bit.

So I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic this marks the end of the post-December consolidation period/downtrend, but it's too early to say with certainty. All it takes is another large enough market sell by a whale, too early into the recovery, and we're back to consolidation time.

[FTWbitcoinFTW]

Let's make a short list for the 3 biders !

Idea anyone ?

[TERA]

This would make for a somewhat more realistic bottom.  (though it still looks a little short to me overall)

[seldon]

Let's make a short list for the 3 biders !

Idea anyone ?

Secondmarket
Winkelvii
Some of the SF-area VCs?
edit: Paypal would be awesome, but a bit unrealistic

[Richy_T]

Back to shortin!

[magicmexican]

This would make for a somewhat more realistic bottom.  (though it still looks a little short to me overall)

Since when you are such a bull?

[Yololintian]

"Well, d'uh, of course it was good news. The worst run exchange in the BTC ecoystem *finally* went down. That's what brought us to the new ATH of 6000."

I don't strongly agree or disagree with anything your saying except this. gox being gone is not going to lead us to $6000 per bitcoin, or really any rise in price, lol. Not one person invests in bitcoin because gox is gone. gox probably wouldn't stop anyone from investing in bitcoin until now. Maybe some people will celebrate by buying a little for the good occasion, but it is no reason to make the price go up.

[jl2012]

in other Bitcoin related matter, Blockchain.info is being DDOS-ed and in there were 9 found blocks in only 20 minutes, how odd is that ?

9 found blocks in only 20 minutes from different pool: nothing to see here, it just means it will be more and more difficult to mine bitcoin

[TERA]

Since when you are such a bull?

I'm just keeping my word. You asked me earlier when I'd stop being a bear and I said at 400.

[fluidjax]

Let's make a short list for the 3 biders !

Idea anyone ?

Secondmarket
Winkelvii
Some of the SF-area VCs?
edit: Paypal would be awesome, but a bit unrealistic

 ‏@paulbuitink
"the 3 companies bidding on Gox are well-known in the #bitcoin industry."

[mmitech]

in other Bitcoin related matter, Blockchain.info is being DDOS-ed and in there were 9 found blocks in only 20 minutes, how odd is that ?

9 found blocks in only 20 minutes from different pool: nothing to see here, it just means it will be more and more difficult to mine bitcoin

I didn't mean "hey there is a problem..."  read my question: how odd is that ?  possible answer : 1- huh, what a luck !  2- wow that difficulty is going to sky rocket 3- well it happened many times...

[JorgeStolfi]

Serious question: Would anyone use "GOX" if it was bought by a reputable company and re branded allowing limited customer withdrawals but with a guarantee that finds are safe. Then if they implemented full transparancy of user funds??

If the company is well known and can win back trust (e.g. by implementing a proof-of-ownership for all funds) I'm sure many people would. Also MK would need to be driven away with a large stick first.

If the customer base of MtGOX could generate enough money to cover its debts, they would not be insolvent.  They could get loans to pay those debts with pressing deadlines, and eventually get back into the black.

Being insolvent means that they have more debts than assets, and their expected revenues in the medium term (say, two years) are not enough to fill the gap.

A company that acquires MtGOX will inherit their debts, and cannot expect to make more money than they did a month or two ago.  That means net losses (and big losses, while the clients withdraw their balances), for years perhaps.  What is the point of the takeover then?

Thus, I would be very surprised if MtGOX gets rescued.

[Kerrai]

Serious question: Would anyone use "GOX" if it was bought by a reputable company and re branded allowing limited customer withdrawals but with a guarantee that finds are safe. Then if they implemented full transparancy of user funds??

If the company is well known and can win back trust (e.g. by implementing a proof-of-ownership for all funds) I'm sure many people would. Also MK would need to be driven away with a large stick first.

If the customer base of MtGOX could generate enough money to cover its debts, they would not be insolvent.  They could get loans to pay those debts with pressing deadlines, and eventually get back into the black.

Being insolvent means that they have more debts than assets, and their expected revenues in the medium term (say, two years) are not enough to fill the gap.

A company that acquires MtGOX will inherit their debts, and cannot expect to make more money than they did a month or two ago.  That means net losses (and big losses, while the clients withdraw their balances), for years perhaps.  What is the point of the takeover then?

Thus, I would be very surprised if MtGOX gets rescued.

I wouldn't be. I made the argument here, although it's a simplistic one:

http://theblogchain.com/2014/02/26/mtgox-is-getting-rescued-by-other-bitcoin-businesses/

[Richy_T]

There was no leak at their fiat account, right? Only their BTC deposits was narrowed by the thefts.

Perhaps they were using the fiat to buy bitcoins in order to allow them to continue paying out there and on the assumption that the price would continue rising and they'd be able to buy some of the fiat back. Once the Bitcoin price started falling again, game over.

[Walsoraj]

From my "Predict the next Gox revelation here and win respect from fellow forum members" thread:

I'll go first: Mark has been manipulating trade data since at least last September.

He certainly had the incentive to do so. And we now know he is willing to do almost anything to save Gox, including mislead the public.

Feel free to join in! 

[billyjoeallen]

It took me a long time to understand the Gox situation, so I am not surprised to see people here in the same stages I have gone through. You have to understand who Mark Karpeles is. Look at his cat videos. This is a man selling a dead parrot. There is no credible buy-out in the making. There are no coins at Gox. He is still in denial, trying to restart the engines on the Titanic after all the lifeboats have launched. The coins are gone. forever. The magnitude of the loss is hard to fathom, but when it does sink in, the realization of how precious and rare bitcoins are starts to become clear.

Denial is a powerful psychological force.  Some things are too awful to contemplate. But who is in denial here, bulls or bears? critics or boosters? This Gox thing has shaken me to the core. We should all question our assumptions. Bears, I don't disrespect you. I just disagree. Bitcoin exhibits anti-fragile characteristics and just experienced a major stress shock and got much much stronger as a result.