Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Trolfi]

lol, are u kidding me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uk-trader-charged-with-role-in-flash-crash-stock-plunge/2015/04/21/cb829800-e84f-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Apparently he was putting up fake sell "walls" to drive the price down!

Who even knew that was illegal, let alone 20 years worth.

I put something up for sale, then flake out at the last second ... how is that illegal?

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[cypherdoc]

lol, are u kidding me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uk-trader-charged-with-role-in-flash-crash-stock-plunge/2015/04/21/cb829800-e84f-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Apparently he was putting up fake sell "walls" to drive the price down!

Who even knew that was illegal, let alone 20 years worth.

I put something up for sale, then flake out at the last second ... how is that illegal?

Its ludicrous. Anyone who's stared at a level 2 trading screen sees HFT 100 lot orders constantly flashing in and out within milliseconds continuously baiting you .

[marcus_of_augustus]

... it reads like he went to the SR and it blew his mind.

I'm liking all this angst again coming out of the mainstream exactly "wtf? is bitcoin", is it this? is it that?  ... they realise it is not going to die or be coopted and so they must grapple with getting a strategy together to conceptualise/deal with it. The "blockchain not bitcoin" soundbite myth dissolved on them.

Marcus, OT question. What is the algorithm you have as your sig picture?

It is an equation, not an algorithm. It is the piece of a puzzle to a very old, hard problem, PM me if you want to know anymore.

I thought Stolfi had some insights. Too bad you couldn't steer his obsession to solving that.

Yes, he did. And I know, but it is likely one of these things where curious minds like to start at the beginning to be fully invested instead of coming along after someone else has done all the heavy lifting, like bitcoin. Then it's easier to just throw rocks and hope for some reflected glory.

[Grafzep]

lol, are u kidding me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uk-trader-charged-with-role-in-flash-crash-stock-plunge/2015/04/21/cb829800-e84f-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Apparently he was putting up fake sell "walls" to drive the price down!

Who even knew that was illegal, let alone 20 years worth.

I put something up for sale, then flake out at the last second ... how is that illegal?

Its ludicrous. Anyone who's stared at a level 2 trading screen sees HFT 100 lot orders constantly flashing in and out within milliseconds continuously baiting you .

And that the state thinks it should take a view on trading tactics between grown adults in the totemic heart of the free world.

I think it's indicative of their weakness. Would they have spent 5 years hunting someone who caused a spike up?

[ErisDiscordia]

wow, i don't think i've ever seen such ignorance so well articulated:

http://www.americanbanker.com/video/can-bitcoins-technology-be-severed-from-the-currency-1073927-1.html

thank god the internet is here so these idiots' opinions can be recorded for posterity

so...let's take the blockchain, brush off all the lunatic anarchists, centralize it and let JP Morgan run it...oh wait isn't that what we have today and it's working out just great for everyone? why call it a blockchain then, want to use a buzzword to look cool in front of the young kids, geezer?

Ah Bitcoin, thank you for being so interesting that in order to fully understand you, one has to educate oneself ceaselessly until ones bullshit-radar makes your explode with laughter when you hear a guy like this talking

[cypherdoc]

lol, are u kidding me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uk-trader-charged-with-role-in-flash-crash-stock-plunge/2015/04/21/cb829800-e84f-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Apparently he was putting up fake sell "walls" to drive the price down!

Who even knew that was illegal, let alone 20 years worth.

I put something up for sale, then flake out at the last second ... how is that illegal?

Its ludicrous. Anyone who's stared at a level 2 trading screen sees HFT 100 lot orders constantly flashing in and out within milliseconds continuously baiting you .

And that the state thinks it should take a view on trading tactics between grown adults in the totemic heart of the free world.

I think it's indicative of their weakness. Would they have spent 5 years hunting someone who caused a spike up?

That reminded me of 2008 when Wall Street got all pissed off at the shorts and actually succeeded in banning all shorts on financial institutions. What a crooked game they run:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/here-what-happened-when-sec-banned-shorting-financial-companies-2008

https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-211.htm

[solex]

lol, are u kidding me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uk-trader-charged-with-role-in-flash-crash-stock-plunge/2015/04/21/cb829800-e84f-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Rather then actually fix the problem (say by requiring a 5 minute minimum time for placed orders) they simply make money on the traders and then when the market goes down find a scapegoat to arrest for doing what their system explicitly allowed.

A two second minimum life-span for orders on all exchanges would be the simplest and most effective action regulators could take to stabilize markets. That UK trader should get a medal for highlighting how broken the HFT-abused markets are.

[marcus_of_augustus]

wow, i don't think i've ever seen such ignorance so well articulated:

http://www.americanbanker.com/video/can-bitcoins-technology-be-severed-from-the-currency-1073927-1.html

sheez, why does this guy even feel qualified to comment in such detail about the technology? does he know about the code, complex systems behaviour, distributed networks? seems like he's got an unarticulated "political" problem with decentralisation (which in itself is a huge red flag since it is a apolitical technical feature) and if he has better ideas like he believes with his "centralised blockchain" he could submit them to github or pay someone to write some code that has his architectural brilliance embedded.

these guys are still in denial. the game's moved on old chaps. sometimes the clever thing to do when outgunned is stfu before looking stupid.

[thezerg]

lol, are u kidding me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uk-trader-charged-with-role-in-flash-crash-stock-plunge/2015/04/21/cb829800-e84f-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Rather then actually fix the problem (say by requiring a 5 minute minimum time for placed orders) they simply make money on the traders and then when the market goes down find a scapegoat to arrest for doing what their system explicitly allowed.

A two second minimum life-span for orders on all exchanges would be the simplest and most effective action regulators could take to stabilize markets. That UK trader should get a medal for highlighting how broken the HFT-abused markets are.

Personally, I think that if you publish an API and someone uses that API they should by definition not be doing anything illegal (within the context of that system).  Your API should not allow illegality.

Now let's split hairs; if a hacker pushes executable code through a bug in your API its not illegal yet.  But that executable code then runs on the server and probably does something illegal (opens a backdoor that wasn't part of the API, transfers $, etc).  Similarly, if a hacker steals your password, logs in and steals your bitcoin, his use of the system wasn't illegal but stealing your password and subsequent use of your $ sure is...

You can call me an engineer but actually I think that the perspective above is what Bitcoin tries to do and one of the reasons why it is so appealing... the above is essentially an emergent property of a zero trust protocol.

[STT]

lol, are u kidding me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uk-trader-charged-with-role-in-flash-crash-stock-plunge/2015/04/21/cb829800-e84f-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Rather then actually fix the problem (say by requiring a 5 minute minimum time for placed orders) they simply make money on the traders and then when the market goes down find a scapegoat to arrest for doing what their system explicitly allowed.

A two second minimum life-span for orders on all exchanges would be the simplest and most effective action regulators could take to stabilize markets. That UK trader should get a medal for highlighting how broken the HFT-abused markets are.

I thought the main problem was still naked short selling or orders that appear but are never completed.     They cant really enforce times on orders due to a large industry of very computerised trades, legitimate and paid by the exchanges to provide liquidity.  If they interfere with that it would reveal how low real trading volume has fallen since 2000 and cause all sorts of problems.
So they outlaw tricking computers which I think is basically what happened, I thought they'd already taken measures like the really basic one of suspending to an auction if the market moves too far too quickly.  I think its happened since a few times that a major market has stopped mid day a couple times just not recently

[rocks]

wow, i don't think i've ever seen such ignorance so well articulated:

http://www.americanbanker.com/video/can-bitcoins-technology-be-severed-from-the-currency-1073927-1.html

sheez, why does this guy even feel qualified to comment in such detail about the technology? does he know about the code, complex systems behaviour, distributed networks? seems like he's got an unarticulated "political" problem with decentralisation (which in itself is a huge red flag since it is a apolitical technical feature) and if he has better ideas like he believes with his "centralised blockchain" he could submit them to github or pay someone to write some code that has his architectural brilliance embedded.

these guys are still in denial. the game's moved on old chaps. sometimes the clever thing to do when outgunned is stfu before looking stupid.

To emphasize how ignorant these people are, a "centralized blockchain" is simply a chained data structure. It is not new or novel. A centralized blockchain is simply a digital API for money. It is the same as if the FED published an open API spec that enabled transferring money between accounts. Yes that would be new for a central bank, but it would not be new from a technology perspective.

What was novel about bitcoin was the "distributed security mechanism". Bitcoin was the very first to create this and there was nothing even remotely like it at the time. This is the reason bitcoin has taken off as it has. It is very simply a fundamentally new construct for humanity that we have never had access to before. Every single person who claims "blockchain not bitcoin" or "centralized blockchain", at a very fundamental level does not understand what Bitcoin is.

[8up]

wow, i don't think i've ever seen such ignorance so well articulated:

http://www.americanbanker.com/video/can-bitcoins-technology-be-severed-from-the-currency-1073927-1.html

sheez, why does this guy even feel qualified to comment in such detail about the technology? does he know about the code, complex systems behaviour, distributed networks? seems like he's got an unarticulated "political" problem with decentralisation (which in itself is a huge red flag since it is a apolitical technical feature) and if he has better ideas like he believes with his "centralised blockchain" he could submit them to github or pay someone to write some code that has his architectural brilliance embedded.

these guys are still in denial. the game's moved on old chaps. sometimes the clever thing to do when outgunned is stfu before looking stupid.

To emphasize how ignorant these people are, a "centralized blockchain" is simply a chained data structure. It is not new or novel. A centralized blockchain is simply a digital API for money. It is the same as if the FED published an open API spec that enabled transferring money between accounts. Yes that would be new for a central bank, but it would not be new from a technology perspective.

What was novel about bitcoin was the "distributed security mechanism". Bitcoin was the very first to create this and there was nothing even remotely like it at the time. This is the reason bitcoin has taken off as it has. It is very simply a fundamentally new construct for humanity that we have never had access to before. Every single person who claims "blockchain not bitcoin" or "centralized blockchain", at a very fundamental level does not understand what Bitcoin is.

This is the perfect explanation of what "retarded" is. He is simply stuck in 20th century centralism.

[justusranvier]

Generational warfare:

https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/edward-snowden-nsa-surveillance-aclu/2015/04/22/id/639957/

http://fusion.net/story/118401/meet-the-lawyer-taking-on-uber-and-the-on-demand-economy/

Boomers are generally anti- anything which threatens their monthly pension and Social Security checks.

That means they need to be pro-surveillance and anti-Bitcoin, at least they will be anti-Bitcoin as soon as they realize the extent to which Bitcoin and encryption allow for unprecedented payroll tax evasion and the extent to which Millennial are willing to use those technologies to evade payroll taxes.

Politicians will cater to the NSA, because (besides the fact that the NSA has a huge collection of blackmail material) the older cohorts are pro-NSA and most likely to vote.

It's going to turn into open warfare, with the older team using legislation and lawsuits and the younger team using ever-improving technology.

[Bagatell]

Generational warfare:

Did your parents mistreat you? If so I can see why you have such a simplistic attitude.

[cypherdoc]

Time to head to Spain:

http://www.coindesk.com/spanish-bitcoin-community-celebrate-bitcoins-vat-exemption/

[hdbuck]

How The Second Tech Bubble Will Burst, In The Words Of Silicon Valley's "Poster Child" And World's Youngest Billionaire:

Total internet advertising spend cannot justify outsized valuations of social media products that derive revenue from advertising. Feed-based advertising units will plummet in value (in the case of Twitter, advertising spend may not move beyond experimental dollars) similar to earlier devaluing of Internet display advertising.

Fed has created abnormal market conditions by printing money and keeping interest rates low. Investors are looking for growth anywhere they can find it and tech companies are good targets - at these values, however, all tech stocks are expensive - even looking at 5+ years of revenue growth down the road. This means that most value-driven investors have left the market and the remaining 5-10%+ increase in market value will be driven by momentum investors. At some point there won't be any momentum investors left buying at higher prices, and the market begins to tumble. May be 10-20% correction or something more significant, especially in tech stocks.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-23/how-tech-bubble-will-burst-words-silicon-valleys-poster-child-and-worlds-youngest-bi


bring it on!

[brg444]

Cypherdoc, seeing as you were so much against 3 core developers working under the same hood at Blockstream do you have any comments about Gavin & co. setting up shop in NSA's antechamber working under a previous White House senior advisor?

[justusranvier]

Total internet advertising spend cannot justify outsized valuations of social media products that derive revenue from advertising.

We actually can't be certain about that statement until we know what percent of the money that pays for internet advertising originated in the intelligence agency budgets.

[cypherdoc]

Cypherdoc, seeing as you were so much against 3 core developers working under the same hood at Blockstream do you have any comments about Gavin & co. setting up shop in NSA's antechamber working under a previous White House senior advisor?

i see it as a different situation.

Blockstream is a for-profit started by gmax himself in which they have equity shares which stand to appreciate enormously if SC's are successful and have specifically solicited numerous deep pocketed investors, many of whom have been anti-Bitcoin historically.  not only that, i specifically have admitted to having suspicions about gmax and Luke Jr's political views and shown examples of how they have mishandled community issues in the past.  plus, i don't like the entire concept of SC's in general as i don't believe moving BTC to a scBTC is a good economic idea for several reasons especially in regards to disrupting an equilibrium balanced mining industry.

as far as Gavin, Wlad, & Cory are concerned, they all were under the BF's roof all along before.  they have just moved over to MIT now which in theory is not a for profit afaik and doesn't exist for political reasons.  i'm only now getting a sense from some of you about concerns regarding MIT's past behaviors.  all i know about Aaron Swartz is that they didn't support him in his gvt struggles, is that right?  i think he was attacking/releasing some of their paywall informational archives, wasn't he?  if that's the case, then it seems understandable that their would be some tension btwn them.

i read Joi Ito's statement on the Media Labs intention and so far we should give him the benefit of the doubt.  of course, time will tell.  i did read that article this morning about Forde.  he's definitely someone worth keeping an eye on.  i would not like it if he ends up trying to steer core dev direction to a significant degree away from our ideal goals that we've espoused ad nauseum here in this thread.  one thing that did occur to me is that Gavin, et al won't be moving to MIT under the direct roof of the Media Lab, i'm sure.  they will continue to work remotely which helps shield them to a degree.  but yeah, accepting pay can be influential for sure.  somehow though, from what i've seen of MIT's overall contributions to tech, they seem to have libertarian leanings supportive of the Bitcoin culture and open source.  and the fact that it is a research institution is comforting.  do you have any evidence that it is an NSA "antechamber"?

tl;dr:  i don't see it as a problem right now; in fact, i see it as a positive that those 3 are going to continue to be paid.  but yeah, we have to keep an eye out.

[Adrian-x]

Total internet advertising spend cannot justify outsized valuations of social media products that derive revenue from advertising.

We actually can't be certain about that statement until we know what percent of the money that pays for internet advertising originated in the intelligence agency budgets.

Yes good point, when I take off my tinfoil hat and my rose coloured glasses. It looks like the secret owners of the old media giants are now renting a more effective tool, and paying for it with printed money.

We can own this tool and need to use it more effectively