The Bitcoin anti-crash

[imperi]

Prices just hit 17 at TradeHill. Do you guys still expect it to plummet to the single digits? Otherwise, if it stays this high, is this surprising to you and are you going to change your economic theories?

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[ocharry]

The majority of users are stuck in Mt. Gox. We'll see what happens when it reopens.

[imperi]

The majority of users are stuck in Mt. Gox. We'll see what happens when it reopens.

That majority of coins are in people's wallets.

[gdrop]

It's not that people don't trust in BTC (mostly). It's MtGox that had problems. Maybe they'll be a shock when MtGox opens, but I don't expect a big change for too long. I'll just wait it out, since every time they'res been a big shock the market has stabilized pretty fast.

[ocharry]

The majority of users are stuck in Mt. Gox. We'll see what happens when it reopens.

That majority of coins are in people's wallets.

I suppose but look at the volume being traded at Tradehill. It's pretty low.

[billyjoeallen]

MtGox has a lot of Bitcoins tied up that may go onto the auction block soon, driving the price down. At least I hope that's what will happen because i want to pick up some bargains.

[imperi]

MtGox has a lot of Bitcoins tied up that may go onto the auction block soon, driving the price down. At least I hope that's what will happen because i want to pick up some bargains.

I think many people will withdraw their Bitcoins to their wallets, which could possibly increase prices with less sellers.

[Clipse]

No one worth their bitcoins would go out of their way to sell off at a "loss" just cause mtgox had issues.

If they seriously believe the end of bitcoin is around the corner then they might but looking at how this week uptrend on tradehill continued there is very little reason for these bitcoin holders to believe bitcoin is dying.

All I think will happen is funds being withdrawn from mtgox and deposited at another exchange, I even doubt the withdrawal part since I think most outspoken people did so emotionally and not with their heads and once mtgox is back up they will simply continue trading there, I know I will.

[Vandroiy]

It would make sense that someone who puts BTC onto MtGox has the intention of selling them at some point.

A big question is what the 500k BTC deposit is going to do. If these start flowing, they'll probably cycle through a few speculators and drive price down until they're distributed.

An interesting fact is that if the holder is good in psychology, he might be able to trigger a crash or prevent a bubble or do other things that would be too expensive on normal markets. With the prices pushing quite high compared to the amount of BTC some people have, those few are a non-negligible force on the market. And unlike on other markets, one can't just assume their actions will be sane. It could be anyone who just happened to have a miner running more than half a year ago, those people need not have a clue about finance.

Though it appears at least one has thought of a non-disruptive method: someone appeared to be selling a constant, small stream of BTC while mtgox was still running. That's conservative, but very predictable and unlikely to cause sudden trouble. But how can we be sure that's the one with the biggest wallet? Time will tell, I guess.

[imperi]

It would make sense that someone who puts BTC onto MtGox has the intention of selling them at some point.

A big question is what the 500k BTC deposit is going to do. If these start flowing, they'll probably cycle through a few speculators and drive price down until they're distributed.

An interesting fact is that if the holder is good in psychology, he might be able to trigger a crash or prevent a bubble or do other things too expensive on normal markets. With the prices pushing quite high compared to the amount of BTC some people have, those few are a non-negligible force on the market.

And unlike on other markets, one can't just assume their actions will be sane. Though it appears at least one has thought of a non-disruptive method: someone appeared to be selling a constant, small stream of BTC while mtgox was still running. But how can we be sure that's the one with the biggest wallet? Time will tell, I guess.

The 500k BTC deposit is probably Mtgox's master account.

[Vandroiy]

The 500k BTC deposit is probably Mtgox's master account.

You think their "master account" was hacked? Also, wouldn't it be strange to have that as a normal user account? They state they don't trade with that; why even have a balance for it?

It's possible, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense in terms of design. Also, the way MagicalTux talked about passwords to me earlier today... I'd be surprised if their PW got hacked. Or if their account *had* a usable PW to begin with.

I think there's someone else with a lot of BTC on mtgox. Can't be sure, but that's my guess.

[Vinnie]

It depends on what is most important to people, getting their funds out of Bitcoins, or getting their funds out of Mt. Gox.

Yes! And how many will convert to BTC to withdraw their funds? With a net outflow of BTC you could see a high BTC price followed by a large amount of people holding USD, jammed up in line to withdraw their money.