Bitcoin trading halted until 10 PM Eastern tonight

[ronpaulfollower999]

How can it be suspended? I thought the whole point of this is that it can't be controlled or manipulated.

One exchange (the largest) suspended trading. Hopefully people learn from this ordeal and go to other exchanges in the future, or better yet, MtGox shuts down (assuming people can withdraw their funds).

 

[schiffheadbaby]

I worry this is going to bankrupt a lot of quality RP fans

 

[oyarde]

My remaining coins aren't frozen. I can transfer them to any wallet I want.

How are you faring with yours 999 ? Well , I hope.

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

Cool. Transfer them over to a wallet on Mt.Gox's exchange.

Why would I want to?

 

[oyarde]

I worry this is going to bankrupt a lot of quality RP fans

I hope not .

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

How can it be suspended? I thought the whole point of this is that it can't be controlled or manipulated.

And Cypriots "thought" their money was safe/insured up to 100,000 Euros...turns out the ECB and EU made good and allowed that promise to remain true, but initially, EVERYONE'S account was seized.

Look, people will make up excuses saying, "Ohh, but I can transfer my bitcoins out of my wallet to any wallet!" to "I don't use Mt.Gox. Those are for noobs. There are multiple bitcoin exchanges", yet at the end of the day, Mt.Gox moves the market for bitcoins. If Mt.Gox crashes/gets hacked, as it did in 2011, the value for bitcoins everywhere plummets. Checkout Bitcoins back in 2011. Went from $1 to $30, and crashed back down. Why? Mt.Gox was hacked. It didn't matter if you had money in your Bitcoin wallet, or if you never used Mt.Gox before. Every Bitcoin was damaged in value.

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

How are you faring with yours 999 ? Well , I hope.

Yes. I was able to sell a couple around $240 (the top was $260), which gave me back my original investment. When the price hit $200, I figured we were in for a plunge and sold a good chunk.

I got in before $50, and didn't buy after $100.

 

[dannno]

Cool. Transfer them over to a wallet on Mt.Gox's exchange.

...Or transfer them from Mt.Gox exchange to another wallet, that's all open.

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

Why would I want to?

To...invest in the future of Bitcoin? It needs to succeed..but it can't without the seeds (*cough* carcasses *cough*) of initial users to...lay out the foundation to which Bitcoin's architecture can mature and blossom into a gigantic global NYSE-like exchange and annihilates the manipulated FOREX markets.

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

And Cypriots "thought" their money was safe/insured up to 100,000 Euros...turns out the ECB and EU made good and allowed that promise to remain true, but initially, EVERYONE'S account was seized.

Look, people will make up excuses saying, "Ohh, but I can transfer my bitcoins out of my wallet to any wallet!" to "I don't use Mt.Gox. Those are for noobs. There are multiple bitcoin exchanges", yet at the end of the day, Mt.Gox moves the market for bitcoins. If Mt.Gox crashes/gets hacked, as it did in 2011, the value for bitcoins everywhere plummets. Checkout Bitcoins back in 2011. Went from $1 to $30, and crashed back down. Why? Mt.Gox was hacked. It didn't matter if you had money in your Bitcoin wallet, or if you never used Mt.Gox before. Every Bitcoin was damaged in value.

Absolutely. Which is why I hope this is the end for MtGox.

 

[Tod]

One exchange (the largest) suspended trading. Hopefully people learn from this ordeal and go to other exchanges in the future, or better yet, MtGox shuts down (assuming people can withdraw their funds).

I thought Bitcoin is P2P. If trading is routed through exchanges, wouldn't that make it easy for the gov't to control (raid the exchanges)? I'm sure I just am too ignorant about how it works, but this news is doing nothing to allay my reservations about digital currency because the situation seems even more subject to manipulation than I first thought.

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

Yes. I was able to sell a couple around $240 (the top was $260), which gave me back my original investment. When the price hit $200, I figured we were in for a plunge and sold a good chunk.

I got in before $50, and didn't buy after $100.

But, when people say they "got in" and "sold at price X (which always seems to be at the top of the market)" my question is: How much did you put in originally?

If you bought thousands of dollars worth of bitcoins and quintupled your money, you did a good gamble (assuming you were able to get your funds to settle and convert back into "worthless" FRN's that you could then pull out of the market and use to buy something in the real world.).

But chances are, few did that. Most purchased about $200 worth or so of Bitcoins. Whether you made a profit or not is pretty irrelevant. If you expose yourself to a high probability of loss, in the long run, you won't have a long run. That's why casinos don't care if you pulled out the $100,000 jackpot on a slot machine one day, because they know, in the long run, they'll make money.

It's not an "investment" that you did...it's "speculation". You speculated "correctly", maybe, but there is nothing "smart" about putting money into a digital currency that has proven to have none of the features everyone touted it to have, just as someone who put in a dollar and pulled the arm on the slot machine who ended up winning $100,000 cannot be called a "smart" gambler.

There's no such thing as a "smart" gambler. No such thing as a "smart" speculator. If you're making a bet that a majority of the time will lose, or exposes you to high risk, then that can't be passed off an investing, nor as being "smart".

 

[Aldanga]

I thought Bitcoin is P2P. If trading is routed through exchanges, wouldn't that make it easy for the gov't to control (raid the exchanges)? I'm sure I just am too ignorant about how it works, but this news is doing nothing to allay my reservations about digital currency because the situation seems even more subject to manipulation than I first thought.

You can always send BTC to another wallet in exchange for good or currency, but exchanges like Mt Gox make it easy to convert between BTC and other currencies.

 

[oyarde]

Yes. I was able to sell a couple around $240 (the top was $260), which gave me back my original investment. When the price hit $200, I figured we were in for a plunge and sold a good chunk.

I got in before $50, and didn't buy after $100.

Most Excellent !

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

I thought Bitcoin is P2P. If trading is routed through exchanges, wouldn't that make it easy for the gov't to control (raid the exchanges)? I'm sure I just am too ignorant about how it works, but this news is doing nothing to allay my reservations about digital currency because the situation seems even more subject to manipulation than I first thought.

It is P2P. The only trading that has stopped is trading USD/Euro/Yen/etc to BTC on the biggest exchange. If I had a business that accepted Bitcoins, I can still receive Bitcoins at this very moment.

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

Absolutely. Which is why I hope this is the end for MtGox.

So that Mt.Gox's 2.0 successor can suffer the same problems?

 

[oyarde]

It is P2P. The only trading that has stopped is trading USD/Euro/Yen/etc to BTC on the biggest exchange. If I had a business that accepted Bitcoins, I can still receive Bitcoins at this very moment.

If I could use them @ local business, I would have picked some up @ the get go .

 

[oyarde]

I have to swing by the airport tonight , nothing would make me happier than to pay for parking without FRN's .

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

But, when people say they "got in" and "sold at price X (which always seems to be at the top of the market)" my question is: How much did you put in originally?

If you bought thousands of dollars worth of bitcoins and quintupled your money, you did a good gamble (assuming you were able to get your funds to settle and convert back into "worthless" FRN's that you could then pull out of the market and use to buy something in the real world.).

But chances are, few did that. Most purchased about $200 worth or so of Bitcoins. Whether you made a profit or not is pretty irrelevant. If you expose yourself to a high probability of loss, in the long run, you won't have a long run. That's why casinos don't care if you pulled out the $100,000 jackpot on a slot machine one day, because they know, in the long run, they'll make money.

It's not an "investment" that you did...it's "speculation". You speculated "correctly", maybe, but there is nothing "smart" about putting money into a digital currency that has proven to have none of the features everyone touted it to have, just as someone who put in a dollar and pulled the arm on the slot machine who ended up winning $100,000 cannot be called a "smart" gambler.

There's no such thing as a "smart" gambler. No such thing as a "smart" speculator. If you're making a bet that a majority of the time will lose, or exposes you to high risk, then that can't be passed off an investing, nor as being "smart".

I wasn't planning on speculating.

The last 12-24 hours has certainly been somewhat parabolic for Bitcoins, but there is absolutely no evidence that the Fed is buying Bitcoins. I wonder what exchange they're doing it through?

I went to bed the night before with the price at $115. I woke up and it was $145. That left me a little worried. When the price jumped to $260 yesterday, I pretty much figured it was a bubble. I don't think there is anything wrong with taking some $$$ profit off of that though.

I still own Bitcoins (not many), and still like the idea behind it. The infrastructure wasn't there to support such a high price though. I do look forward to the next couple years to see what developers come up with.

 

[Tod]

I have to swing by the airport tonight , nothing would make me happier than to pay for parking without FRN's .

Some would say that you CAN pay in bitcoins via the online business (es?). But if there are only a handful of those online businesses, wouldn't that make it very very easy to stop any transactions with local stores that don't accept bitcoins?