You say it's unsecure to have one big exchange site for BTC (MTGox)

[Umbrella]

Why would the problem be solved if there were 100 other BTC trading sites created?

Everyone would still stay on the best site. There are thousands of search engines in the world, everyone still uses Google.

To prevent this from happening there should be like a user cap on every BTC trading website. But that wouldn't work because everyone would cry that they can't register on the best BTC website.

[davidtehbest]

The free market will correct itself.

[pening]

The free market will not correct itself.  the free market will decide what solution is preferred, but doesn't create those solutions.  people create solutions.  right now there are apparently obstacles that mean no-one is creating accepted, popular, large scale alternatives to MT. Gox.

Its not necessaryily a problem to have a single exchange, but the problem of a single large scale exchange is that its a potential vulnerability, and it creates distortions in the market when off exchange trends are not matched.  right now there seems little alternative and MT. Gox holds sway even though its not considered the best.  popular != best !!!

[petterj]

mtgox will be taken down soon by the US law enforcement agency

[AliceWonder]

Why would the problem be solved if there were 100 other BTC trading sites created?

Everyone would still stay on the best site. There are thousands of search engines in the world, everyone still uses Google.

To prevent this from happening there should be like a user cap on every BTC trading website. But that wouldn't work because everyone would cry that they can't register on the best BTC website.

I only use google for image searches or when I can't find what I want with duckduckgo.

The reason I want multiple exchanges is that competition is good for the consumer.

When exchanges have to compets for us, they are more likely to innovate and provide fair pricing.

There are several concerns I personally have with Mt. Gox

A) They are not located in the United States, the country I reside in. This makes legal disputes (should they occur) more difficult to settle.

B) They lied to FinCEN. Now maybe that wasn't intentional, may have just been a mis-understanding, but they need people who understand the forms and how to answer them.

C) There are way too many reports of withdrawals taking way longer than they should. That worries me that there is funny business going on and I don't want my money passing through hands where there is funny business going on.

[Lohoris]

mtgox will be taken down soon by the US law enforcement agency

how

[AliceWonder]

mtgox will be taken down soon by the US law enforcement agency

how

I'm not speculating that this will happen, but by shutting off fiat transactions from the US to them.
That would effectively shut them down.

[Captain Nemo]

The greatest risk factor with any exchange is the legal one, running an exchange is a dangerous territory to be in. Governments around the world (with US in the lead) are always going to be interested in shutting down exchangers who provide access to unregulated economies such as bitcoin. If we're relaying on 1-3 big centralized exchanges it would be very easy to wipe out and destroy the entire ecosystem for a very long time period simply by shutting down these few targets.

A much better strategy is to have a lot of exchanges spread across as many countries as possible. A particularly interesting case would be Liberty Reserve exchangers. How many is/were there? Quite a few, more than I can count. And most of them are still running fine despite the legal issues. Many of these exchanges are located in jurisdictions where the US does not have easy access and the variety means the legal situation is complex and hinders an easy shut down of every operation at once.

Now I would like to see it go a step further and by that I mean decentralization of exchangers, I'm thinking true p2p exchanges may arise and eventually take up a greater market share, this would effectively work as not only 100, but perhaps 1k, 10k or 100k exchanges, individual people all acting as exchangers. Now if they are having a hard time shutting down ~100 exchanges across the globe, imagine shutting down hundred thousands, perhaps millions of individual people transferring relatively small amounts between each other?

[Captain Nemo]

mtgox will be taken down soon by the US law enforcement agency

how

I'm not speculating that this will happen, but by shutting off fiat transactions from the US to them.
That would effectively shut them down.

No it won't. It would just shut all US customers out, which arguably may be the only thing saving them in the end. BTC-E.com I believe is already doing this, and they are doing fine (for now).

[Lohoris]

No it won't. It would just shut all US customers out, which arguably may be the only thing saving them in the end. BTC-E.com I believe is already doing this, and they are doing fine (for now).

Mmmh, but since they already fucked up SEPA transfers, who would use it then?

[petterj]

mtgox will be taken down soon by the US law enforcement agency

how

I'm not speculating that this will happen, but by shutting off fiat transactions from the US to them.
That would effectively shut them down.

No it won't. It would just shut all US customers out, which arguably may be the only thing saving them in the end. BTC-E.com I believe is already doing this, and they are doing fine (for now).

US will stop bitcoins business at first(trying now), then EUROPE follows(trying now), then Russia and Asia(not happen yet). no exception, that's the end.

[Lohoris]

US will stop bitcoins business at first(trying now), then EUROPE follows(trying now), then Russia and Asia(not happen yet). no exception, that's the end.

This is unsubstantiated FUD.

[Pastelarts]

BTC Goes down 77.43 PFEUH !