25k coins bought, $10 jump

[HeliKopterBen]

They could possibly be buying because they think bitcoin is a good investment.

[pennywise]

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

[Carlton Banks]

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

"Holiday" arrangements to Tokyo, check!

What people seem to assume is that Mt Gox's back story has any credence at all: even if they did start out as a genuine Magic the Gathering trading site that just so happened to end up as the biggest cryptocurrency exchange out there, the credibility of that transformation is missing a key step in the narrative. At some point, a very big fish in Japanese power broking got involved, they could not have got such a web platform (16 major currencies?) to where it is and continue it without that kind of cooperation. I'd be very concerned about Japanese regulatory investigations into Gox's business, but there have been precisely zero such forays, not even a hint. Whoever their backer is, they're significant members of the global political food chain. They're not letting their massive gamble of a venture go down in a hurry, or without a fight. I wonder exactly what sort of turbulence this outfit has really caused behind closed doors up until now.

Anyone who really believes this is just the natural evolution of a gaming card website is excruciatingly naive. It's not going away in the short term.

[MAbtc]

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

I said it's not foolish, with conditions. But you conveniently ignored the brunt of my point. Sure, the situation you paint sounds like a wet dream, but if this were happening on any decent scale, inter-exchange spreads would have ceased long ago.

Re obtaining a bank account, unless things have changed, you need to register for an alien registration card, which requires Japanese residency. I've seen sources that say one year -- others that say there are exceptions with certain banks with certain documentation. But establishing residency in a foreign country to obtain money you are already entitled to is a ridiculous hurdle and it's funny that people illustrate this as reasonable.

Also, does the currency exchange issue (i.e. Gox exchanges USD-JPY rather than its bank) affect money transmission issues? A state-by-state look at money transmitter regulations suggests that currency exchange may carry compliance concerns that Gox is not in a position to handle. Do you have any information about this, or are we just assuming it is a non-issue?

[bitcon]

whats so hard about exchanging your fiat into 16 different currencies? cant you go down to your own local bank and do that? assuming the same people run mtgox if/when it was a mtg site means very little other than maybe the operators saw a more profitable business model.

[pennywise]

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

I said it's not foolish, with conditions. But you conveniently ignored the brunt of my point. Sure, the situation you paint sounds like a wet dream, but if this were happening on any decent scale, inter-exchange spreads would have ceased long ago.

Re obtaining a bank account, unless things have changed, you need to register for an alien registration card, which requires Japanese residency. I've seen sources that say one year -- others that say there are exceptions with certain banks with certain documentation. But establishing residency in a foreign country to obtain money you are already entitled to is a ridiculous hurdle and it's funny that people illustrate this as reasonable.

Also, does the currency exchange issue (i.e. Gox exchanges USD-JPY rather than its bank) affect money transmission issues? A state-by-state look at money transmitter regulations suggests that currency exchange may carry compliance concerns that Gox is not in a position to handle. Do you have any information about this, or are we just assuming it is a non-issue?

I know what you said and I wanted to point out that your "conditions" can be circumvented.

But check this thread if you haven't already: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276610.0  -- lots of answers.

Since Japanese locals are reporting to have withdrawn their money in JPY, I assumed it's a non-issue. Furthermore, because of their business involving several currencies, I again, assumed, that they went through the necessary validations for currency exchanging or their banks do it for them.

[notme]

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

I said it's not foolish, with conditions. But you conveniently ignored the brunt of my point. Sure, the situation you paint sounds like a wet dream, but if this were happening on any decent scale, inter-exchange spreads would have ceased long ago.

Are you sure about that?
MtGox USD -> JPY Bank (3% exchange rate fee + wire fee)
JPY Bank -> US Bank (3% exchange rate fee + wire fee)
US Bank -> Other Exchanges (wire fee)

They might be able to tighten the spread a little bit, but not too much more than it has been.

[MAbtc]

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

I said it's not foolish, with conditions. But you conveniently ignored the brunt of my point. Sure, the situation you paint sounds like a wet dream, but if this were happening on any decent scale, inter-exchange spreads would have ceased long ago.

Re obtaining a bank account, unless things have changed, you need to register for an alien registration card, which requires Japanese residency. I've seen sources that say one year -- others that say there are exceptions with certain banks with certain documentation. But establishing residency in a foreign country to obtain money you are already entitled to is a ridiculous hurdle and it's funny that people illustrate this as reasonable.

Also, does the currency exchange issue (i.e. Gox exchanges USD-JPY rather than its bank) affect money transmission issues? A state-by-state look at money transmitter regulations suggests that currency exchange may carry compliance concerns that Gox is not in a position to handle. Do you have any information about this, or are we just assuming it is a non-issue?

I know what you said and I wanted to point out that your "conditions" can be circumvented.

But check this thread if you haven't already: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276610.0  -- lots of answers.

Since Japanese locals are reporting to have withdrawn their money in JPY, I assumed it's a non-issue. Furthermore, because of their business involving several currencies, I again, assumed, that they went through the necessary validations for currency exchanging or their banks do it for them.

Yeah, non-option. You can't just become a Japanese local with a bank account without establishing residency and documentation with the local registrar.

Don't assume anything with Gox. They had $5 million seized over the past few months for dodging regulations. They're fucking buffoons. And we know about their current banking situation...

[MAbtc]

It's not foolish if you can afford to have your money in limbo for weeks or months at a time. Could definitely be worth it.

It's not foolish and it's not very complicated to understand why. There is a way to goet money uot of gox fast. You have to have an account at a japanese bank (which can be complicated to achieve for a foreigner) and send funds from gox to that bank. Then you just wire the money at the bank to anywhere you want.

There are few who have this set up and perhaps they are making millions. Nothing foolish about that.

I said it's not foolish, with conditions. But you conveniently ignored the brunt of my point. Sure, the situation you paint sounds like a wet dream, but if this were happening on any decent scale, inter-exchange spreads would have ceased long ago.

Are you sure about that?
MtGox USD -> JPY Bank (3% exchange rate fee + wire fee)
JPY Bank -> US Bank (3% exchange rate fee + wire fee)
US Bank -> Other Exchanges (wire fee)

They might be able to tighten the spread a little bit, but not too much more than it has been.

To some extent you're right, but I think you're understating the effect on a 10-15% spread.

[Impaler]

Actual NET purchases look to be only 15k initially with about 5k coins then coming out of limbo to reduce the total change to 10k, that's the amount that the BTC depth has dropped by (from 50k to 40k) and that drop in depth is what causes prices to rise.  Trading volume has normally been twice the amount of actual depth decline in all of these whale purchases.

At this rate only 4 more large whale purchases of this size will EMPTY GOX and at the rate they are occurring this will take just 2 weeks.

People are really really being lulled into a false sense of security by looking at these rising numbers, people need to realize that Gox and by association BTC is becoming ILLIQUID and that is fatal, the only value of BTC is that it is liquid.

[derpinheimer]

Actual NET purchases look to be only 15k initially with about 5k coins then coming out of limbo to reduce the total change to 10k, that's the amount that the BTC depth has dropped by (from 50k to 40k) and that drop in depth is what causes prices to rise.  Trading volume has normally been twice the amount of actual depth decline in all of these whale purchases.

At this rate only 4 more large whale purchases of this size will EMPTY GOX and at the rate they are occurring this will take just 2 weeks.

People are really really being lulled into a false sense of security by looking at these rising numbers, people need to realize that Gox and by association BTC is becoming ILLIQUID and that is fatal, the only value of BTC is that it is liquid.

Asks dropped from 56,000 to 38,000.

So, over 20k of market order buys, somewhere under 5k of sells into the walls.

 

[niko]

None of this explains why Bitstamp, CampBX and btc-e all recorded the same magnitude jump simultaneously

That is the way arbitrage works. The person who bought all those coins had to buy them from other people. Some of those people have fiat sitting at other exchanges. When their bitcoins are sold on Gox they buy the same number of coins at other exchanges at the lower price for an instant profit.

There is no profit, instant or delayed, unless they can move fiat out of gox, and into their own hands. Gox deposits are not insured. There is no arbitrage, there is only gambling on the fate of gox.

[zeta1]

None of this explains why Bitstamp, CampBX and btc-e all recorded the same magnitude jump simultaneously

That is the way arbitrage works. The person who bought all those coins had to buy them from other people. Some of those people have fiat sitting at other exchanges. When their bitcoins are sold on Gox they buy the same number of coins at other exchanges at the lower price for an instant profit.

There is no profit, instant or delayed, unless they can move fiat out of gox, and into their own hands. Gox deposits are not insured. There is no arbitrage, there is only gambling on the fate of gox.

they did pay up the customers when there was a giant leak on GOX!

[ixne]

What people seem to assume is that Mt Gox's back story has any credence at all: even if they did start out as a genuine Magic the Gathering trading site that just so happened to end up as the biggest cryptocurrency exchange out there, the credibility of that transformation is missing a key step in the narrative. At some point, a very big fish in Japanese power broking got involved, they could not have got such a web platform (16 major currencies?) to where it is and continue it without that kind of cooperation. I'd be very concerned about Japanese regulatory investigations into Gox's business, but there have been precisely zero such forays, not even a hint. Whoever their backer is, they're significant members of the global political food chain. They're not letting their massive gamble of a venture go down in a hurry, or without a fight. I wonder exactly what sort of turbulence this outfit has really caused behind closed doors up until now.

Anyone who really believes this is just the natural evolution of a gaming card website is excruciatingly naive. It's not going away in the short term.

That is a hilarious example of classic conspiracy theorizing. As a rule, conspiracy theories must attribute a near-omnipotent amount of unchecked power to some supernaturally competent and all-knowing antagonist.  Applying this to an outfit as clearly amateurish and out of their depth as the Mt Gox crew (bless them, I wish them well, but really...) is just laughable.

Presumably their long, documented history of very public mistakes, blatant security breaches, poor technical performance under pressure, operational front-end and interface that looks like it was hacked together by some version of Dreamweaver from the 90s, legal s&*tstorms involving seizure of huge chunks of operating revenue, and near strangulation by the financial industry today is all part of their master plan!

1. stumble ass-backwards into an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
2. f*&k up publically almost every step of the way, relying on the fact that you were first on the scene and have a near-monopoly to push you through your "growing pains"
3. fail to make even basic steps towards operational competency, run afoul of the U.S. government, have your millions of casually strewn-about millions of dollars in a sketchy online financial conduit service seized, and lose not just monopoly but your ability to provide the basic services of a market to most of your customers
4.
5. Profit!

Oh man, I have not laughed so hard in a long, long time.

[Peter Lambert]

1. stumble ass-backwards into an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
2. f*&k up publically almost every step of the way, relying on the fact that you were first on the scene and have a near-monopoly to push you through your "growing pains"
3. fail to make even basic steps towards operational competency, run afoul of the U.S. government, have your millions of casually strewn-about millions of dollars in a sketchy online financial conduit service seized, and lose not just monopoly but your ability to provide the basic services of a market to most of your customers
4.
5. Profit!

But they have been raking in bunches of money from the commissions, why didn't they pay somebody to fix all the glaring problems? It must be some sort of plot, they have remained just good enough to keep the #1 volume spot, thereby holding all of bitcoin down from its true potential!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

They probably want to get their money out of gox and have no choice in the matter? Buy BTC and transfer out?

Once out, they will then deposit into BitStamp. taking advantage of arbitrage. Some people just don't know how the Stock Market works. 

[Zaih]

The "People want money out of Gox" is a load of rubbish

Get on the train fella's.

[zeta1]

Anyone have any idea why the price jumped yet again?

[Wekkel]

Anyone have any idea why the price jumped yet again?

All fiat starts to jump in. Nobody wants to be left behind.

[prophetx]

you fools ... people in the EU can also do SEPA Euro transfers out of gox....  it is only the dollar based accounts that need to convert...