

Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates - floorlamp
http://thegenesisblock.com/mt-gox-impact-diminishes-market-price-dissociates/

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samolang
For anyone that is interested there is now a market for trading "real"
bitcoins for "gox" bitcoins.

[https://bitcoinbuilder.com/](https://bitcoinbuilder.com/)

~~~
hatu
Can you explain what is stuck at Gox? Is it peoples bitcoins or their cash?
How can they get them out to trade to other people and if they can why are
they valued lower than normal bitcoins?

~~~
samolang
My understanding is that both bitcoins and cash are stuck at Gox. But you are
still able to do internal bitcoin transfers within Gox. Person A transfers
their "gox" bitcoins to bitcoinbuilder.com's "gox" bitcoin address, person B
transfers their "real" bitcoins to bitcoinbuilder.com's "real" bitcoin
address, bitcoinsbuilder.com transfers the "gox" bitcoins to person B's "gox"
bitcoin address, and bitcoinsbuilder.com transfers the "real" bitcoins to
person A's "real" bitcoin address. No bitcoins enter or leave Gox, they just
trade hands within Gox using bitcoinsbuilder.com as the intermediary.

------
kolev
Bitcoin at its best - ignore and outshout truths that don't help the value of
your stash go up.

~~~
kiba
Why do you think the market is wrong on this one?

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kolev
"Market" is an exaggeration. It's a battleground of flawed trading bot algos,
immature investors, internal fraud by exchanges, and some shady characters
("Fontas", "whales", etc.).

~~~
oscilloscope
If the "battleground" is the exchange value of Bitcoin, then calling it a
market is not an exaggeration.

~~~
kolev
Ideally, the market price is driven purely by demand and supply, not by bots
and speculators.

~~~
kolev
@Karunamon Sorry for not being clear. My point is that increasing price it's
not indicative that more people are getting interested in Bitcoin like many
are trying to present it. It's purely speculation and we saw recent polls
showing regular people not being interested in alternatives to the dollar.

~~~
oafitupa
Demand != number of people. For example, you can get twice the demand from the
same number of people if they decide to invest more.

~~~
kolev
I know, but the increasing price is often presented like the average Joes are
rushing to put their savings in Bitcoin, which is not the case.

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rdmcfee
The market is clearly betting against MtGox having a fix soon. Based on this
article it seems like their revenues are strong but their customer acquisition
and retention will suffer immensely if they don't manage to re-instate
withdrawals.

I find it hard to imagine that they won't solve the withdrawal concern soon.
Especially with today's update.

~~~
kolev
The withdrawals will be supposedly enabled after the 20th with limits! They
are clearly insolvent and I hope to see Mark Karpeles and Roger Ver in jail
sool! "The Bitcoin Satan" (i.e. Roger Ver) is actually soliciting people on
Bitcoin Forums to buy their coins and dollars at Mt.Gox at a discounted rate,
i.e. they are trying with Mark to steal coins from customers and cover up the
loss from theft that's most probably have happened. This clearly proves that
Bitcoin and especially exchanges should be heavily regulated. People have lots
millions of dollars due to the games Mt.Gox is playing with them - in a normal
market, they would be jailed and jailed hard. Similar story with BitSpend, all
the Bitcoin gambling sites, honest Ponzi sites like (ponzi.io), and similar -
there are horror stories over at Reddit and Bitcoin Forums of people losing
their last penny trying to recover from the price drop by gambling. I am
sorry, but Bitcoin really is a criminals' sandbox recently! It's a good piece
of technology in the wrong hands!

~~~
jnbiche
You want to ban Bitcoin gambling more that it's already banned? So betting is
only OK when it's a state lottery?? I can most decidedly assure you that
people where I live _routinely_ spend their last pennies on state lottery
tickets.

And the people who lost some of their money by investing in a volatile new
market, then tried to gamble their way back to a break-even point and lost?
They bear no responsibility for this? Instead, your solution is to outlaw
gambling?

Sometimes I despair of my fellow man. By the way, I don't even gamble (in my
entire life, I've gambled one single time, not counting two-dollar NCAA
basketball pools in HS).

But it really disturbs me how people want to just outlaw what people should be
free to do if they wish. Do you have any idea what they're doing to gamblers
because of laws like you're advocating? They're sending in SWAT squads in
massive raids, where the "target" frequently ends up shot, or at least their
dog.

What about alcohol, do you want to outlaw that? It sure causes a lot of
problems. Why not just return to Prohibition?

On the other hand, if some powerful Bitcoin player somehow has insider
information on Gox's (in)solvency (quite possible) and is still trying to sell
Gox coins or Gox bucks that he/she knows to be worthless, that's clearly
crossed the line into fraud, and existing fraud regulations are more than
adequate for that. Absolutely no additional regulation is needed to prosecute
that (see what's happening to pirateat40). However, I have not seen that this
is happening, so I'd like to see the thread you're referring to. As it is,
your position on gambling makes me extremely skeptical toward your claims.

Edit: OK, edited out "are you fucking kidding me". I apologize to fellow HNers
for such an emotional comment -- first time ever (check my history). But I'm
so tired of people calling for more laws when we're _so_ close to living in a
police state.

~~~
kolev
People should stop using vulgarism as crutches for their frail thoughts.

State lottery is regulated. It also physically prevents people from putting
money into it, which they cannot afford to lose (well, there are services that
automate this for you at a price). Gambling is addictive and more often ruins
lives than it makes people rich - I know this first-hand as I have relatives
who just cannot get out of the vicious circle! I have no doubt that in the
future all gambling will be prohibited and will be severely prosecuted.

~~~
jnbiche
You know, I'll let your ad hominem stand with no comment, but I will point out
that I removed my initial "vulgarism" before you responded, leaving only an
edit trail for the benefit of other commenters.

And I understand better now, you're emotionally involved in the issue. I'm
sorry your relatives have this problem, but they'd have the same issue with
the state lottery in every state I've ever lived, since none of them require
an ID (so no way to prevent people from spending their last dollar).

And no, gambling doesn't make many people rich. I think most of us know that,
at least from a rational perspective.

By the way, alcohol very near ruined my life permanently, before I stopped
drinking 10 years ago. Should I call for peoples' enjoyable evening glass of
wine to be banned, and for them to be "severely prosecuted"?

And good luck with your "all gambling will be prohibited". More and more
states are legalizing gambling, since it's a nice revenue stream.

~~~
kolev
Be fair - you edited to avoid downvotes. I can't simply by offended by words
especially today when even women curse like sailors. It was a suggestion to
you. Strong emotions can be expressed better by using proper language as well
- it's harder, but it has a stronger effect. A startup covered here had a moto
"Do Shit That Matters". I tweeted suggesting them to change it do "Do What
Matters", which has the same meaning, but is less ghetto. I like "I fucking
love science" Facebook page, but, really, how was that F word really
necessary?

Regarding gambling, I am talking about distant future (20+ years from now). In
20 years, alcohol might be irrelevant, but today, two glasses of red wine, for
example, have a health benefit. What is the benefit of putting $20 in a slot
machine? Maybe some arm exercise.

Gambling tricks the brain differently. If you get a hangover, next time most
people will be more careful drinking as much. I got drunk once pretty severely
and now I get stick just smelling hard liquor (thank God, red wine is okay).
With gambling, after a big loss, people often rush back in the casino as soon
as possible to try to recover what they've lost.

------
blibble
that top image has to be the most questionable trendline I've ever seen

~~~
dragontamer
Agreed.

Fortunately, it isn't meant to be a "trendline", but instead a measure to show
that correlation between exchanges does not exist anymore.

Different exchanges are supposed to have correlations near 1.00. (.99 to .95
is to be expected) However, with correlations near .5, it is clear that
Bitstamp prices are very different from Mt. Gox prices.

------
greatsuccess
Its hard to say whether this disassociation is really good for anyone. Its
probably a fair assumption that some exchanges have accounts at Gox to take
advantage of their (formerly) higher exchange rate. If my speculation is
correct Mt Gox while being dissociated may protect individuals, but could doom
other exchanges if they have significant holdings there. Individuals wont know
until its too late.

