Speculation on the price of BTC if Bitfinex does a Gox

[BTCLovingDude]

If something bad happens, then the exchange rates can crash by as much as 30%. That means that we will go back to three digits. But it seems like people have learnt their lesson. Most of the users are not keeping their coins on exchange sites.

hey if they lose their coins they cant dump them anymore

bitfinex is nearly empty now!
people are scared, there has been too many hacks and runaways that people jump at the smallest sounds. and fortunately for them they were able to withdraw bitcoin and altcoins from there and everyone surely did.

there are only some high-risk-takes there who are selling on high price and waiting to buy low when the dust settles.

i also say if they don't come back price can go down to $1050

[BitHodler]

If I was a trader there I would have converted all fiat I had in my account to Bitcoin, to cash it out immediately. I rather lose a few % in paying the premium price there than losing everything I have.

I am not a person that's going to wait till they operate on a normal level again, hell no! Coming back to the question of OP ~ dump to $800 and from there a slow recovery.

I have been searching to find the cold storage addresses belonging to Bitfinex, but I can't seem to find anything specific. Can anyone link me to their addresses? I am fairly sure that they must be around.

[severaldetails]

When bitfinex got hacked, price dropped about 10%. And from all I can remember bitfinex was not reachable completely. That was an event that happened without any warning.
Today, only fiat transactions are canceled, bitfinex is reachable, and the users had time for over two days to react on the news in a way they think is best for them.
Due to that I don't think that the influence from the events these days will come near the 10% of the hack.
And I think as well that bitfinex could even survive without any fiat transactions at all.

[Nagadota]

When bitfinex got hacked, price dropped about 10%. And from all I can remember bitfinex was not reachable completely. That was an event that happened without any warning.
Today, only fiat transactions are canceled, bitfinex is reachable, and the users had time for over two days to react on the news in a way they think is best for them.
Due to that I don't think that the influence from the events these days will come near the 10% of the hack.
And I think as well that bitfinex could even survive without any fiat transactions at all.

That's ridiculous, the hack was something that Bitfinex supposedly refunded and people didn't automatically assume that the exchange had collapsed then.  The price drop was just showing that the exchange could have been destroyed.  If the exchange actually failed altogether, it would result in a bigger drop in the price than that.

The price drop after a failure in Bitfinex would be around 20%.  It would be much higher than Bitfinex's actual trading volume, simply because people start losing faith in Bitcoin exchanges since it seems like they just keep failing or getting hacked and their funds are never safe enough on there.  It could even have a bit more of a lasting effect, but the price will recover through other means.

[Hazir]

It is not about Bitfinex anymore. Major bitcoin exchanges stopped accepting US dollar deposit as well.
They all claim that there is a problem with wired deposits and banking system.
This situation created fake demand for bitcoin, because people are buying BTC with the fiat money to withdraw it.

[Iranus]

It is not about Bitfinex anymore. Major bitcoin exchanges stopped accepting US dollar deposit as well.

Have you got a source on this?  Pretty sure Bitstamp and BTC-E are still accepting deposits.  It's only OKCoin which has also blocked deposits, possibly because of some problems with the banks in their country.

They all claim that there is a problem with wired deposits and banking system.

Only OKCoin that I've seen.

This situation created fake demand for bitcoin, because people are buying BTC with the fiat money to withdraw it.

The only time when that happens is if fiat withdrawals are not accepted.  If deposits aren't allowed, it's fine because people can still trade Bitcoin and fiat and withdraw either (people often still withdraw fiat) and there would be no artificially increased demand for people to withdraw fiat.

So the price on exchanges other than Bitfinex is legit and I think people are reasonably excluding Bitfinex from their price estimations.  Therefore overall the price is not being pumped by that and it wouldn't take quite such a dramatic dip if Bitfinex Goxed everyone.

[btbrae]

Just want to add that the BTC price was going up before this and it's going up even faster now. It doesn't take much for altcoins to dive 10% which suggests to me the altcoin bubble is coming to a close and the whales are buying back into BTC at an opportune moment.

The Bitfinex FUD is just a ruse, they will probably come through this doing OK.

[Emoclaw]

Remember that Bitfinex was hacked for 120K BTC, or around $70m at that time. Nothing happened.
Back in the Mtgox days Bitcoin was still new and there was MUCH less volume than there is today. It's safe to say that if Bitfinex were to go Mtgox literally nothing would happen, because not only is the total Bitcoin volume much higher, Bitfinex isn't even the largest exchange this time.
$100 is not coming back.

[york780]

Remember that Bitfinex was hacked for 120K BTC, or around $70m at that time. Nothing happened.
Back in the Mtgox days Bitcoin was still new and there was MUCH less volume than there is today. It's safe to say that if Bitfinex were to go Mtgox literally nothing would happen, because not only is the total Bitcoin volume much higher, Bitfinex isn't even the largest exchange this time.
$100 is not coming back.

Just like the 120 000 BTC. Make no mistake Bitfinex 'hacked' (probobly just an insidejob just like now) will crash the price.

[richardsNY]

Isn't the okcoin and btc-e also have similar problem lately due to their Taiwanese bank? All have stopped bank wire deposit and probably also withdrawal just like bitfinex. So i don't think bitfinex going to be another GOX.

However if it does than i don't think price will fall below 1100$.

Even without Bitfinex going down the price might dive under $1100 due to the uncertainties around the potential hard fork. People now focus only on Bitfinex, but BU is still something that is causing the market to not move further. Importance of Bitcoin scaling can't be underestimated. It's mind boggling how people manage to put it aside like the 'problem' has solved itself. It's just pushed aside, and that's it.

[agustina2]

First of all this is only a hypothetical question. Second, the purpose of asking is to find out how robust and strong the community thinks the Bitcoin market is since MtGox.

If Bitfinex became like MtGox, what price do you believe Bitcoin will fall to?

Still around $1,000 not lowered than $800.

With the lots of issues since Bitfinex was launched throughout the years, it's impossible that they maintained their number of traders up to today. Plus the fact there are numbers of big exchanges now, if ever there will be a whole dump session @ Bitfinex, it would not take at least majority of the percentage of coins of worldwide.

A BU FUD thing didn't stopped the Bitcoin price so that Bitfinex turning to a GOX if ever, will just be a part of come and go negative news session in bitcoin world.

[Denker]

Well I hope these guys can find a solution for that problem.
I don't think they are insolvent or something like that. It's really the case that the banks are giving them some serious hard days/weeks at the moment. And of course traders, FUDsters etc try to take advantage of that.
My advise: don't get greedy and trade careful with less money than usual on the exchanges if you trade. Just to be safe!

[bamboylee]

First of all this is only a hypothetical question. Second, the purpose of asking is to find out how robust and strong the community thinks the Bitcoin market is since MtGox.

If Bitfinex became like MtGox, what price do you believe Bitcoin will fall to?

Maybe the same effect it had when it was hacked in 2016. Last time the price dropped about 200$. It cannot have the same effect as MtGox had because bitcoin are not concentrated on a single exchange.

[york780]

But it isnt 1 exchange tho. OKcoin is also frozen since yesterday. And bitstamp is behaving quite strange. Kraken had its issues a couple months ago, Bitfinex cold storage halved this day(they are fleeing with the bitcoins)

[r0ach]

Kind of hard for Bitfinex to Gox when it already did Gox and they just turned the power back on to the insolvent exchange anyway.  They operate kind of similar to the too big to jail banks now - no standard accounting practices.  Just fractional reserve to infinity.  If you got 2 cents in deposits, just turn the exchange back on raise the dial on leverage until able to claim solvency!

[zby]

MtGox stopped withdrawals in June - then after half a year it pumped BTC from about 100 to over 1200 with other exchanges following (just about 10% lower). The question what will happen after the current pump is irrelevant - the important thing is if the current pump will manage to do a 10x just like the MtGox pump. Bitfinex might be not as important as MtGox was - but with this amount of shorts it has a lot of fuel.

[eaLiTy]

But it isnt 1 exchange tho. OKcoin is also frozen since yesterday. And bitstamp is behaving quite strange. Kraken had its issues a couple months ago, Bitfinex cold storage halved this day(they are fleeing with the bitcoins)

Okcoin stopped accepting US dollar and all of the Chinese exchanges have taken the same stand ,it is nothing new with the new regulation and uncertainty they have in China,there is always a sentiment when there is a major hack in a big exchange and we have seen some during last year when bitfinex was hacked ,i thought we would see a big crash but apart from the slight niggle the price recovered,so i am not seeing any major crash other than a minor correction.

[FiendCoin]

Seems kind of crazy we are still pushing higher.

[hermanhs09]

Seems kind of crazy we are still pushing higher.

Bitfinex has a lower chance of doing a Gox in my opinion than Gox had itself.

Still has BTC withdrawals enabled which is a good sign.

Just released a public statement saying that they are fully solvent - take that with a grain of salt of course but, at least they are claiming something and not leaving the public speculating.

[Wind_FURY]

It is not about Bitfinex anymore. Major bitcoin exchanges stopped accepting US dollar deposit as well.
They all claim that there is a problem with wired deposits and banking system.
This situation created fake demand for bitcoin, because people are buying BTC with the fiat money to withdraw it.

This is bad news. The lowest price that was said in this thread where Bitcoin might fall to is at $800. But if all major exchanges stopped fiat deposits and withdrawals, could the fall be lower than initially expected? Back to $500 perhaps?