So what happens if Gox misses their deadline in one week?

[TheBanker]

I'm trying to form hypotheses on what happens if Gox misses their deadline. Note my use of the word "deadline". In my mind, Gox painted themselves into a corner by saying "we will be back in 2 weeks" - you need to be 100% sure before you're holding people's money and you make a statement like that.

We are now 1 week into this period. My fear is that if they miss that deadline then there will be chaos in the BTC market. Obviously there are other exchanges but Gox remains highly influential and I think that panic will ensue. There's basically no room for Gox to say, "uh, we need another 2 weeks" - none.

So my prediction is pure chaos and a severe devaluation of BTC. Whats your prediction?

[Trading]

In the second statement, they say USDs withdraws are not suspended, but that they are being processed slowly. After the term of the second week, they will just say that things are now almost normal, but because of all the withdraw requests their processing will take some time. That will give them two weeks more.
In the end, the consequences will be dependent on the real cause of the delays. If Citibank is indeed blocking transfers to MtGox, other American banks might adopt the same policy...

[empoweoqwj]

If there was going to be chaos, it would have happened after the 1st announcement. There was no chaos. Sure, some people who wanted their cash out of Gox had to buy BTC on Gox, then transfer to Bitstamp or a.n.other, but apart from that, its been business as usual.

So no, no panic, no chaos. Just Gox gradually losing market share. But thank god for other exchanges else the whole thing would have collapsed.

[Cyberdyne]

There's basically no room for Gox to say, "uh, we need another 2 weeks" - none.

I think that would be up to each individual to decide.

For example, I have $ on Gox and am in absolutely no hurry to withdraw them, so they can take another 2 months for all I care.

It might take that long for me to snare some more sub-$80 coins anyway

My prediction is inevitably some people will panic, and some won't

[TheBanker]

If there was going to be chaos, it would have happened after the 1st announcement. There was no chaos. Sure, some people who wanted their cash out of Gox had to buy BTC on Gox, then transfer to Bitstamp or a.n.other, but apart from that, its been business as usual.

So no, no panic, no chaos. Just Gox gradually losing market share. But thank god for other exchanges else the whole thing would have collapsed.

I disagree with this. There is a world of difference between making an announcement of "it will just be 2 weeks" or an announcement of "we couldnt do it" AND they've already been holding your money. Those are two very distinct opportunities for chaos, one does not follow the other.

[prophetx]

i had a feeling i should have transferred to btce or bitstamp when they were at parity with gox about a week ago...

moral of my story?

trust your gut or get goxxed 

[andrewsg]

Personally if I had anything at Gox I would have moved it out already, just to improve the quality of my sleep at night.

If they do not open USD withdrawals as announced, we will probably see the same trend continuing, people will buy BTC with their USD, and move it out, resulting in higher prices at Gox compared to other exchanges.

If that's all that happens, there will be no dramatic impact on prices - dramatic would be Gox closes down, goes out of business.

[gabbynot]

In the second statement, they say USDs withdraws are not suspended, but that they are being processed slowly.

Have there been any confirmations of USD withdrawals in the last week?

[Frizz23]

I'm trying to form hypotheses on what happens if Gox misses their deadline. Note my use of the word "deadline". In my mind, Gox painted themselves into a corner by saying "we will be back in 2 weeks" - you need to be 100% sure before you're holding people's money and you make a statement like that.

You never (never!) use the term "in 2 weeks" (unless you work for BFL of course)  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLcjUmBncZ8

[TheBanker]

Personally if I had anything at Gox I would have moved it out already, just to improve the quality of my sleep at night.

If they do not open USD withdrawals as announced, we will probably see the same trend continuing, people will buy BTC with their USD, and move it out, resulting in higher prices at Gox compared to other exchanges.

If that's all that happens, there will be no dramatic impact on prices - dramatic would be Gox closes down, goes out of business.

That's not true at all and thats what scares me. I posted before on other forums about my experience with localbitcoins. For every 10 offers of people selling me BTC, I *might* get one offer of someone that wants to buy. The demand for buying BTC is just not there - I live in a large area, plenty of people. So I have to believe that these other exchange sites experience the same. Take for example Coinbase - I have no idea what their numbers are and maybe their ratio is not as bad as my 10:1 but I'm willing to bet they also have MANY more sellers than buyers. So these exchanges must also use Gox at some point. If Gox goes down, or cannot do USD any more, I would expect at least a couple of exchanges to follow suit and close down. If the avenues of getting USD back are closing down then something just has to cave in.

[joesmoe2012]

Personally if I had anything at Gox I would have moved it out already, just to improve the quality of my sleep at night.

If they do not open USD withdrawals as announced, we will probably see the same trend continuing, people will buy BTC with their USD, and move it out, resulting in higher prices at Gox compared to other exchanges.

If that's all that happens, there will be no dramatic impact on prices - dramatic would be Gox closes down, goes out of business.

That's not true at all and thats what scares me. I posted before on other forums about my experience with localbitcoins. For every 10 offers of people selling me BTC, I *might* get one offer of someone that wants to buy. The demand for buying BTC is just not there - I live in a large area, plenty of people. So I have to believe that these other exchange sites experience the same. Take for example Coinbase - I have no idea what their numbers are and maybe their ratio is not as bad as my 10:1 but I'm willing to bet they also have MANY more sellers than buyers. So these exchanges must also use Gox at some point. If Gox goes down, or cannot do USD any more, I would expect at least a couple of exchanges to follow suit and close down. If the avenues of getting USD back are closing down then something just has to cave in.

You don't understand how a free market works do ya?

For every seller, there must be a buyer. Price makes this happen.

If it was a sellers market, with 90% people wanting to sell bitcoins and only 10% wanting to buy, then the price per bitcoin would continue to drop until there was no longer more selling interest than buying interest.

[Cyberdyne]

You don't understand how a free market works do ya?

For every seller, there must be a buyer..

Or buyers, or a fraction of a buyer

[joesmoe2012]

You don't understand how a free market works do ya?

For every seller, there must be a buyer..

Or buyers, or a fraction of a buyer

True, i thought about adding that but wanted to be as concise as possible.

[TheBanker]

Personally if I had anything at Gox I would have moved it out already, just to improve the quality of my sleep at night.

If they do not open USD withdrawals as announced, we will probably see the same trend continuing, people will buy BTC with their USD, and move it out, resulting in higher prices at Gox compared to other exchanges.

If that's all that happens, there will be no dramatic impact on prices - dramatic would be Gox closes down, goes out of business.

That's not true at all and thats what scares me. I posted before on other forums about my experience with localbitcoins. For every 10 offers of people selling me BTC, I *might* get one offer of someone that wants to buy. The demand for buying BTC is just not there - I live in a large area, plenty of people. So I have to believe that these other exchange sites experience the same. Take for example Coinbase - I have no idea what their numbers are and maybe their ratio is not as bad as my 10:1 but I'm willing to bet they also have MANY more sellers than buyers. So these exchanges must also use Gox at some point. If Gox goes down, or cannot do USD any more, I would expect at least a couple of exchanges to follow suit and close down. If the avenues of getting USD back are closing down then something just has to cave in.

You don't understand how a free market works do ya?

For every seller, there must be a buyer. Price makes this happen.

If it was a sellers market, with 90% people wanting to sell bitcoins and only 10% wanting to buy, then the price per bitcoin would continue to drop until there was no longer more selling interest than buying interest.

I've only done about $700,000 USD transactions of BTC this year, so yeah, I don't understand a thing . . .   

you are putting way too much trust in a virtual company. Not all transactions are what they seem, buyers can "appear" out of thin air, you know?

[Entropy-uc]

Personally if I had anything at Gox I would have moved it out already, just to improve the quality of my sleep at night.

If they do not open USD withdrawals as announced, we will probably see the same trend continuing, people will buy BTC with their USD, and move it out, resulting in higher prices at Gox compared to other exchanges.

If that's all that happens, there will be no dramatic impact on prices - dramatic would be Gox closes down, goes out of business.

That's not true at all and thats what scares me. I posted before on other forums about my experience with localbitcoins. For every 10 offers of people selling me BTC, I *might* get one offer of someone that wants to buy. The demand for buying BTC is just not there - I live in a large area, plenty of people. So I have to believe that these other exchange sites experience the same. Take for example Coinbase - I have no idea what their numbers are and maybe their ratio is not as bad as my 10:1 but I'm willing to bet they also have MANY more sellers than buyers. So these exchanges must also use Gox at some point. If Gox goes down, or cannot do USD any more, I would expect at least a couple of exchanges to follow suit and close down. If the avenues of getting USD back are closing down then something just has to cave in.

You don't understand how a free market works do ya?

For every seller, there must be a buyer. Price makes this happen.

If it was a sellers market, with 90% people wanting to sell bitcoins and only 10% wanting to buy, then the price per bitcoin would continue to drop until there was no longer more selling interest than buying interest.

I've only done about $700,000 USD transactions of BTC this year, so yeah, I don't understand a thing . . .  

you are putting way too much trust in a virtual company. Not all transactions are what they seem, buyers can "appear" out of thin air, you know?

And the Winkelvoss twins bought $10 M USD and didn't sell any.

Anecdotes are not data.

Maybe your customers are all drug dealers.

Or maybe you have an agenda to talk the price down.  I see you trying that on threads all over the site.

[TheBanker]

Personally if I had anything at Gox I would have moved it out already, just to improve the quality of my sleep at night.

If they do not open USD withdrawals as announced, we will probably see the same trend continuing, people will buy BTC with their USD, and move it out, resulting in higher prices at Gox compared to other exchanges.

If that's all that happens, there will be no dramatic impact on prices - dramatic would be Gox closes down, goes out of business.

That's not true at all and thats what scares me. I posted before on other forums about my experience with localbitcoins. For every 10 offers of people selling me BTC, I *might* get one offer of someone that wants to buy. The demand for buying BTC is just not there - I live in a large area, plenty of people. So I have to believe that these other exchange sites experience the same. Take for example Coinbase - I have no idea what their numbers are and maybe their ratio is not as bad as my 10:1 but I'm willing to bet they also have MANY more sellers than buyers. So these exchanges must also use Gox at some point. If Gox goes down, or cannot do USD any more, I would expect at least a couple of exchanges to follow suit and close down. If the avenues of getting USD back are closing down then something just has to cave in.

You don't understand how a free market works do ya?

For every seller, there must be a buyer. Price makes this happen.

If it was a sellers market, with 90% people wanting to sell bitcoins and only 10% wanting to buy, then the price per bitcoin would continue to drop until there was no longer more selling interest than buying interest.

I've only done about $700,000 USD transactions of BTC this year, so yeah, I don't understand a thing . . .   

you are putting way too much trust in a virtual company. Not all transactions are what they seem, buyers can "appear" out of thin air, you know?

And the Winkelvoss twins bought $10 M USD and didn't sell any.

Anecdotes are not data.

Maybe your customers are all drug dealers.

I'm clearly more concerned about BUYERS of BTC, as in the lack-of. Again, my ratio is 10:1, granted bigger companies may have a smaller ratio, but I would be HIGHLY surprised if there was a company out there (like Coinbase) that could claim a larger buy-side than sell-side demand. There is clearly a larger demand (both in customers and amount) to SELL BTC than buyers of BTC (both in customers and amount - my largest request to buy BTC was 3.5)

[Entropy-uc]

Personally if I had anything at Gox I would have moved it out already, just to improve the quality of my sleep at night.

If they do not open USD withdrawals as announced, we will probably see the same trend continuing, people will buy BTC with their USD, and move it out, resulting in higher prices at Gox compared to other exchanges.

If that's all that happens, there will be no dramatic impact on prices - dramatic would be Gox closes down, goes out of business.

That's not true at all and thats what scares me. I posted before on other forums about my experience with localbitcoins. For every 10 offers of people selling me BTC, I *might* get one offer of someone that wants to buy. The demand for buying BTC is just not there - I live in a large area, plenty of people. So I have to believe that these other exchange sites experience the same. Take for example Coinbase - I have no idea what their numbers are and maybe their ratio is not as bad as my 10:1 but I'm willing to bet they also have MANY more sellers than buyers. So these exchanges must also use Gox at some point. If Gox goes down, or cannot do USD any more, I would expect at least a couple of exchanges to follow suit and close down. If the avenues of getting USD back are closing down then something just has to cave in.

You don't understand how a free market works do ya?

For every seller, there must be a buyer. Price makes this happen.

If it was a sellers market, with 90% people wanting to sell bitcoins and only 10% wanting to buy, then the price per bitcoin would continue to drop until there was no longer more selling interest than buying interest.

I've only done about $700,000 USD transactions of BTC this year, so yeah, I don't understand a thing . . .   

you are putting way too much trust in a virtual company. Not all transactions are what they seem, buyers can "appear" out of thin air, you know?

And the Winkelvoss twins bought $10 M USD and didn't sell any.

Anecdotes are not data.

Maybe your customers are all drug dealers.

I'm clearly more concerned about BUYERS of BTC, as in the lack-of. Again, my ratio is 10:1, granted bigger companies may have a smaller ratio, but I would be HIGHLY surprised if there was a company out there (like Coinbase) that could claim a larger buy-side than sell-side demand. There is clearly a larger demand (both in customers and amount) to SELL BTC than buyers of BTC (both in customers and amount - my largest request to buy BTC was 3.5)

If there wasn't equilibrium in the market price would be moving.  If you don't understand that you ought to find a new line of work.

There are lots of reasons you get more sellers than buyers.  An obvious example is tax avoidance.  If you are buying for cash, and your sellers are avoiding tax your personal buy/sell equilibrium is being skewed by the typical income tax rate.

[arbitrage001]

There is this biased that anyone with big enough capital can manipulate the price upward, one could argue this is part of the demand side.

But anyone with enough capital can not drive down the price, there is no mechanism to short bitcoin (unless mtgox change their policy to allow naked short using money as collateral).

[arbitrage001]

Don't forget the exchange itself has something to gain for upward price movement.

[arbitrage001]

Mt.Gox almost certainly IS naked short bitcoin.  If you scrape the surface of any deposit taking BTC organization you'll find someone who is naked short.

I do not fully understand the 2nd statement. Any reason to lead to this believe?