Bitcoin trading halted until 10 PM Eastern tonight

[dannno]

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

You should start a local business that accepts bitcoins

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

I wasn't planning on speculating.



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.

You weren't planning on speculating...yet you bought something that exists only in cyberspace that throws off no cash flow, nor has any functional uses in the real world...

It depends on what your definition of "is" is.

 

[dannno]

You weren't planning on speculating...yet you bought something that exists only in cyberspace that throws off no cash flow, nor has any functional uses in the real world...

It depends on what your definition of "is" is.

I bought silver with my bitcoin when it was worth $250/coin, how is that not a functional use?

 

[newbitech]

I'll pay $40/coin.

Anybody else wanna turn this thread into a trading auction?

40.00001

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

I bought silver with my bitcoin when it was worth $250/coin, how is that not a functional use?

This was what, one or two days ago?

So you sold your bitcoins, transfered the money over to your bank, and withdrew it to buy silver, all within a matter of less than 48 hours?

Considering the Fed's banking clearinghouse requires a minimum of 3 days for funds to settle for basic electronic transfers, I'm raising the BS flag

 

[Crystallas]

Trading hasn't halted.

 

[oyarde]

Trading hasn't halted.

What is the current price ?

 

[Boss]

I dunno , but I can tell you what my silver dimes are worth .

Well, what are they worth? Are you speaking of intrinsic value / utility, or are you speaking in terms of USD?

 

[Crystallas]

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

Agreed. Gox is garbage, has been for some time. It's the n00b exchange that only n00bs trade with, because they are n00bs, and know nothing more.

Also, Gox has lost that 80% a while ago. They were down to 70% of the BTC market in December, and it kept dropping. Yet, people still think they have been the 80%+ exchange, like they proxy-advertise on their homepage. Hopefully Gox does die, this should shake off the centralized trading, which is the exact opposite of what BTC was meant to be.

There is an open source p2p exchange in the works, which will completely decentralize exchanges. And because no central server will host it, making it impossible to DDoS.

 

[Crystallas]

What is the current price ?

$65

 

[oyarde]

Well, what are they worth? Are you speaking of intrinsic value / utility, or are you speaking in terms of USD?

$2 , I probably usually keep about 16 ounces of them around various places.I also accept them for eggs I sell.One silver dime, one dozen organic brown eggs.

 

[oyarde]

$65

Here are things I am more familiar with , corn $6.34 , oil $94.45 , Brent Crude $105.79 , one yr oil forecast $109 , Natural Gas , $4.11, Copper $3.41 , Silver $27.63 , Gold $1560 1/2 .

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

Agreed. Gox is garbage, has been for some time. It's the n00b exchange that only n00bs trade with, because they are n00bs, and know nothing more.

Also, Gox has lost that 80% a while ago. They were down to 70% of the BTC market in December, and it kept dropping. Yet, people still think they have been the 80%+ exchange, like they proxy-advertise on their homepage. Hopefully Gox does die, this should shake off the centralized trading, which is the exact opposite of what BTC was meant to be.
There is an open source p2p exchange in the works, which will completely decentralize exchanges. And because no central server will host it, making it impossible to DDoS.

You don't understand the free market. The ambitious tone behind suggesting what Bitcoin is/was "meant" to be is just repeating the arrogant precedence of all of human history with government experimentation. Politicians would love to create their own utopia exactly how they would like it to be designed, but it doesn't work that way. Bitcoin doesn't work that way. To suggest Bitcoin needs to be a certain way contradicts your own argument that it needs to be "Decentralized". To suggest bitcoin needs to be decentralized means you're coming at it from a very centralized perspective: your own, while trying to impress on everyone else, the decentralized public, on how things for Bitcoin "should" be.


Bitcoin is meant to be whatever the market decides. Not you. The market decided Mt.Gox would be the main market for Bitcoin exchange. You say the noobs use it; so the market is noob because it doesn't jive with your clan's dogmatic view of the way things "should " be.

The market natually consolidates industries. If there's a thousand Bitcoin exchanges or if there's only a handful, it doesn't matter. It's an irrelevant point to debate. As Rothbard illustrated, it's a futile as asking "what's the optimal number of peaches in an economy?" Such a question is ridiculous because nobody knows the optimal number of peaches, nor do you know the optimum number of exchanges. By suggesting Mt.Gox holding 70% or whatever of the Bitcoin volume isn't a "good" thing because it isn't how you'd like Bitcoin to be has an underlying tone that you know better than the market.

Besides, like I said, the market consolidates the number of Bitcoin exchanges that exist/will exist. An exchange's value is based on the liquidity it can provide its users. If you have a million Bitcoin exchanges, but only a million Bitcoin users, the exchange system will be quite illiquid. Naturally, the market will consolidate the number of Bitcoin exchanges down to where there's more liquidity. Now that the market is pruning out smaller exchanges, the question then becomes more efficient pricing. If in the real world the USD to Euro exchange rate is 1.30:1, but in the Bitcoin world it's 2:1, that's terribly inefficient pricing by all of the exchanges.

Ironically, with how high tech Bitcoin supposedly is, the pricing is analogous to what you would find in a pre-industrial society. Before we had cars and the telegraph, values of certain things varied widely depending upon where you were. Proximity was a HUGE thing. Bank notes traded at discounts the further you were away from the bank by distance (due to the fact that it would be more difficult for you to travel to that bank requesting to redeem the bank notes for gold/silver). Now, Bitcoins are traded digitally, and yet even with transactions costs at near zero with instantaneous transfer between parties, it's pricing currency pairs at wide divergences to parallel markets.

 

[Crystallas]

Here are things I am more familiar with , corn $6.34 , oil $94.45 , Brent Crude $105.79 , one yr oil forecast $109 , Natural Gas , $4.11, Copper $3.41 , Silver $27.63 , Gold $1560 1/2 .

You asked. I own oil stock, I own gold and silver too. But you didn't ask about those, you asked what the current BTC price was.

Actually, I bought 100oz .999 SM Silver bars(2x50) just a week ago with BTC. My total USD investment in that specific 100oz buy, was $9USD. How much is 100oz of .999 silver now?

 

[Crystallas]

You don't understand the free market. The ambitious tone behind suggesting what Bitcoin is/was "meant" to be is just repeating the arrogant precedence of all of human history with government experimentation. Politicians would love to create their own utopia exactly how they would like it to be designed, but it doesn't work that way. Bitcoin doesn't work that way. To suggest Bitcoin needs to be a certain way contradicts your own argument that it needs to be "Decentralized". To suggest bitcoin needs to be decentralized means you're coming at it from a very centralized perspective: your own, while trying to impress on everyone else, the decentralized public, on how things for Bitcoin "should" be.


Bitcoin is meant to be whatever the market decides. Not you. The market decided Mt.Gox would be the main market for Bitcoin exchange. You say the noobs use it; so the market is noob because it doesn't jive with your clan's dogmatic view of the way things "should " be.

The market natually consolidates industries. If there's a thousand Bitcoin exchanges or if there's only a handful, it doesn't matter. It's an irrelevant point to debate. As Rothbard illustrated, it's a futile as asking "what's the optimal number of peaches in an economy?" Such a question is ridiculous because nobody knows the optimal number of peaches, nor do you know the optimum number of exchanges. By suggesting Mt.Gox holding 70% or whatever of the Bitcoin volume isn't a "good" thing because it isn't how you'd like Bitcoin to be has an underlying tone that you know better than the market.

Besides, like I said, the market consolidates the number of Bitcoin exchanges that exist/will exist. An exchange's value is based on the liquidity it can provide its users. If you have a million Bitcoin exchanges, but only a million Bitcoin users, the exchange system will be quite illiquid. Naturally, the market will consolidate the number of Bitcoin exchanges down to where there's more liquidity. Now that the market is pruning out smaller exchanges, the question then becomes more efficient pricing. If in the real world the USD to Euro exchange rate is 1.30:1, but in the Bitcoin world it's 2:1, that's terribly inefficient pricing by all of the exchanges.

Ironically, with how high tech Bitcoin supposedly is, the pricing is analogous to what you would find in a pre-industrial society. Before we had cars and the telegraph, values of certain things varied widely depending upon where you were. Proximity was a HUGE thing. Buying imports in a major trading center would likely be cheaper than purchasing a similar import in a rural area due to distance. Now, Bitcoins are traded digitally, and yet even with transactions costs at near zero with instantaneous transfer between parties, it's pricing currency pairs and wide divergences to parallel markets.

You really don't know what you are talking about, do you? I saw your comment about the USD:Euro exchange the other day. I facepalmed, because you can't make that trade in the real world. It was accurate all around. Plus, you made nearly all statements based on Gox, which has been lagged for weeks now(which means you don't even know what the rates are or how exchanges work). That's like posting Fox News or NYT information, and claiming it is unbiased and not misleading at all.

 

[oyarde]

You asked. I own oil stock, I own gold and silver too. But you didn't ask about those, you asked what the current BTC price was.

Actually, I bought 100oz .999 SM Silver bars(2x50) just a week ago with BTC. My total USD investment in that specific 100oz buy, was $9USD. How much is 100oz of .999 silver now?

Excellent .

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

You really don't know what you are talking about, do you? I saw your comment about the USD:Euro exchange the other day. I facepalmed, because you can't make that trade in the real world. It was accurate all around. Plus, you made nearly all statements based on Gox, which has been lagged for weeks now(which means you don't even know what the rates are or how exchanges work). That's like posting Fox News or NYT information, and claiming it is unbiased and not misleading at all.

LoL...you facepalmed, eh? You can't make that trade in the real world? Break this down and tell me how I couldn't do this:

MT Gox USD = $170
MT Gox Euro = $90

World FOREX USD to Euro = $1.30

Tell me how that trade couldn't exist in the real world. Because the exchanges are broken? Exactly. So if arbitrage isn't allowed to work, you have incredibly inefficient markets, because they aren't markets at all. If you can buy gasoline for $1 and then sell it down the street for $2, you'd make that trade all day. Likewise, if I was holding Euros and could buy 53% more USD Bitcoins on MT Gox versus the real world FOREX market, and then cash out and convert those USD's in the world forex market, I would make 53% instant profit assuming $0 transaction costs. Now obviously there is transaction cost to these trades, but it's insignifcant.

Oh, and update: The MT Gox USD market is now $123, but the MT Gox EURO market is $86.

So, how can the USD Bitcoin drop from $170 to $123, and yet the Euro only drop from $90 to $86???

Ohhh, because you're wrong and you don't understand what arbitrage is.

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

MT Gox USD = $170
MT Gox Euro = $90

Implied MT Gox USD to MT Gox Euro = $1.88888 USD's/Euro
World FOREX market for USD to Euro = $1.30 USD's/Euro

So, $0.5888888 price difference to purchase the exact same currency. Yep, I'm right. Facepalm more.

 

[Crystallas]

MT Gox USD = $170
MT Gox Euro = $90

Implied MT Gox USD to MT Gox Euro = $1.88888 USD's/Euro
World FOREX market for USD to Euro = $1.30 USD's/Euro

So, $0.5888888 price difference to purchase the exact same currency. Yep, I'm right. Facepalm more.

Then why didn't you do it? That's right, because you didn't use the real trade exchanges. You used past exchange data for one, and current(current at that time) for another. So when the value of one trades one hour ago, and is worth x, then compare with another trade that happened 10 minutes ago, while the item was worth z, they are not the same. Fail.

Pretty simple, a child could understand.

 

[Gaddafi Duck]

Then why didn't you do it? That's right, because you didn't use the real trade exchanges. You used past exchange data for one, and current(current at that time) for another. So when the value of one trades one hour ago, and is worth x, then compare with another trade that happened 10 minutes ago, while the item was worth z, they are not the same. Fail.

Pretty simple, a child could understand.

Actually, it was real time data I used.

And the reason why I didn't do it is A) Because I refuse to use Bitcoins for the very reason that it gets incredibly mispriced and B) You can only arbitrage the market at select times that are arbitrary. Obviously due to incredibly inefficient exchanges and market pricing. I don't try to chase getting into a market when getting in is difficult. So, getting out is proving very difficult for those using Bitcoin exchanges to do so. Not my cup of tea to setup camp and wait for someone to come walking by on an abandoned road.