BTC exchcange rates

[xhoud01]

Hi guys I am a newbie here have several questions:

1] Who where and how is eXchange rate for Bitcoins set ( BTC/USD BTC/EUR BTC/silver BTC/gold). Is that created through mtgox.com website as a part of free market?
2] What happend if mtgox.com website dissapears - who will know what is actual exchange rate for Bitcoins. Who will replace that?
3] Where can I download actual bitcoin exchange rates?

[ribuck]

What happend if mtgox.com website dissapears - who will know what is actual exchange rate for Bitcoins.

The "actual exchange rate" is whatever rate you exchange your bitcoins for. If the MtGox site disappears, you just have to exchange your bitcoins another way.

[TheKoziTwo]

You can "download" the exchange rate here:
https://mtgox.com/support/tradeAPI

Last price using:
http://mtgox.com/code/data/ticker.php

[SmokeTooMuch]

Mt. Gox isn't the only market.
It is has just undeservingly become the biggest one.

There are several other markets you should checktout if you want to trade bitcoins.

See here for more info: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Currency_exchange
(hm the wiki says mtgox accepts EUR payments, is that true ? afaik you can only pay via LRUSD.
and btw: bitmarket.eu accepts paypal, could someone add this to the wiki?)

[FooDSt4mP]

Mt. Gox isn't the only market.
It is has just undeservingly become the biggest one.

There are several other markets you should checktout if you want to trade bitcoins.

See here for more info: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Currency_exchange
(hm the wiki says mtgox accepts EUR payments, is that true ? afaik you can only pay via LRUSD.
and btw: bitmarket.eu accepts paypal, could someone add this to the wiki?)

From https://mtgox.com/users/addFunds

If you have a European bank account you can send a SEPA direct deposit IN EURO to our european account, free of charges.

[Ian Maxwell]

This forum is a daily reminder to me of just how ingrained is the idea of central control in contemporary culture. An exchange rate is just assumed to be something centrally controlled by some agent like Mt. Gox, presumably working for Satoshi or something.

Reminds me of the Soviet officer who, when told there were no ID cards or residence permits in England, asked in confusion, "How do you know how much bread to bake?"

[FreeMoney]

This forum is a daily reminder to me of just how ingrained is the idea of central control in contemporary culture. An exchange rate is just assumed to be something centrally controlled by some agent like Mt. Gox, presumably working for Satoshi or something.

Reminds me of the Soviet officer who, when told there were no ID cards or residence permits in England, asked in confusion, "How do you know how much bread to bake?"

What are you talking about? Obviously someone smart sets the rate. If people did it on their own they would just pick a great rate for themselves. Okay, give me $1000/coin.
 

[BitLex]

hm the wiki says mtgox accepts EUR payments, is that true ?

EUR funding of MtGox by SEPA direct deposit works flawlessly.
+1 for MtGox/MagicalTux 

[MemoryDealers]

This forum is a daily reminder to me of just how ingrained is the idea of central control in contemporary culture. An exchange rate is just assumed to be something centrally controlled by some agent like Mt. Gox, presumably working for Satoshi or something.

Reminds me of the Soviet officer who, when told there were no ID cards or residence permits in England, asked in confusion, "How do you know how much bread to bake?"

What are you talking about? Obviously someone smart sets the rate. If people did it on their own they would just pick a great rate for themselves. Okay, give me $1000/coin.
 

The exchange rate is always between the price that people are willing to pay for bitcoins and the price people are willing to sell bit coins.
 
It is not set by any single smart person.  It is set by the aggregate demand and supply of all the players in the bitcoin/Dollar exchange market.
That's why it changes all the time.

[meshugga]

Hi there, first post

The problem I seem to find no solution for: if I want to integrate BTC into my webshop, I'd like to charge the same amount of "real" money in BTC (or a bit less, to incentivise bitcoin usage, doing my part and such ) that a user would pay for my goods any other way, such as paypal or moneybookers. At least, the amount of BTCs should reflect the *current* amount (say, at the time he checks out his goods at the webshop) of real money that a user would need to procure the required amount of bitcoins. Anyone getting that?

I know that the exchange rate fluctuates, but there must be some way to display an amount that reflects the current exchange rate to "my" currency.

Is there any solution to that problem? If not, I'm not sure how bitcoin will move beyond speculation and drug trade :/

Thanks for any insight into this matter!

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Hi there, first post

The problem I seem to find no solution for: if I want to integrate BTC into my webshop, I'd like to charge the same amount of "real" money in BTC (or a bit less, to incentivise bitcoin usage, doing my part and such ) that a user would pay for my goods any other way, such as paypal or moneybookers. At least, the amount of BTCs should reflect the *current* amount (say, at the time he checks out his goods at the webshop) of real money that a user would need to procure the required amount of bitcoins. Anyone getting that?

I know that the exchange rate fluctuates, but there must be some way to display an amount that reflects the current exchange rate to "my" currency.

Is there any solution to that problem? If not, I'm not sure how bitcoin will move beyond speculation and drug trade :/

Thanks for any insight into this matter!

Welcome to Bitcoin.
This should be easy to do. You can programmatically access http://mtgox.com/code/data/ticker.php which gives the current exchange rates in JSON format, and use it to make the conversion during checkout. Or you can use MyBitcoin's shopping cart integration toolkit which has BTC-to-other-currency conversion functionality.

[meshugga]

Thanks for replying so quickly!

Am I correct to assume that those exchange rates are only valid for those exchangers? Do they usually equalize each other?

I have no experience trading bitcoins, so is there some kind of a rule of thumb I can safely go by?

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Thanks for replying so quickly!

Am I correct to assume that those exchange rates are only valid for those exchangers? Do they usually equalize each other?

I have no experience trading bitcoins, so is there some kind of a rule of thumb I can safely go by?

For better or worse, the rates at mt gox are considered the de facto rates of exchange. There just isn't enough volume in the other exchanges. I'm fairly sure MyBitcoin uses mtgox's rates too.

As you can see here the exchange rate is known to have sextupled in a 3-week period, so I'd say there's no rule of thumb. Just use the latest mtgox rates.

[fmk63]

This should be easy to do. You can programmatically access http://mtgox.com/code/data/ticker.php which gives the current exchange rates in JSON format, and use it to make the conversion during checkout. Or you can use MyBitcoin's shopping cart integration toolkit which has BTC-to-other-currency conversion functionality.

Better even, you can access the API of BitcoinCharts (http://bitcoincharts.com/t/weighted_prices.json) which gives you weighted prices from multiple exchanges for multiple currencies.

From the documentation at http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api/ :

Bitcoin Charts offers weighted prices for several currencies at http://bitcoincharts.com/t/weighted_prices.json. You can use this to price goods and services in Bitcoins. This will yield much lower fluctuations than using a single market's latest price.

Weighted prices are calculated for the last 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days. If there are no trades during an interval (like no trade within 24 hours) no value will be returned. Prepare your code to handle this cases!

The returned JSON is dictionary with elements for each currency. Each currency has up to three key-value pairs: 24h, 7d and 30d.

[meshugga]

Thanks guys!

God, I love the disruptive potential of bitcoin. Here's hoping that it can be "dumbed down" a little bit more over time ... I'd love to see how the deflationary system plays out and of course, have the banks sweat :>

[Darth Severus]

The problem I seem to find no solution for: if I want to integrate BTC into my webshop, I'd like to charge the same amount of "real" money in BTC ...
Is there any solution to that problem? If not, I'm not sure how bitcoin will move beyond speculation and drug trade :/

Welcome! There is no real problem, just make the price in BTC how you want it. Choose the $ price of MtGox or take more cause the risk, or less if you want BTCs or support this currency. If people have BTCs and want to cashout they may prefer shopping in BTC if it´s cheap or they prefer to cashout if they get more for their BTC. On the other hand you may buy BTC cheaper instead of running a shop and take a low price for your products. So it´s your decision. I think it depends on what is your priority: Support BTC (sell cheap), make money to cash out (sell expensive) or to make BTC to hold them (you may sell cheap and speculate).

[bitcoinex]

mtgox draws you by a virtual prices. Yet no one was able to withdraw a large sum in USD from it. The difference between money on the site and the money in your pocket becomes quite significant in this case. Why people do not understand this?

[ploum]

Did you hear something? It's just like someone posted before me but… wait… we don't really care anyway.

[bitcoinex]

Did you hear something? It's just like someone posted before me but… wait… we don't really care anyway.

Unlearn to speak for everyone

[bitdragon]

Did you hear something? It's just like someone posted before me but… wait… we don't really care anyway.

i care, thank you. And i will even pay attention to what you have to say. I know there is potential and the future is bright,