
Bitcoin near collapse - phreanix
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79438960/
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pg
Really? It collapsed in April, and again in December, but it doesn't seem to
be doing it now.

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npt4279
I'd speculate the price level is now being protected by 'insiders' with large
existing positions.

By one estimation, 1000 people own 54% of all Bitcoin in existence. 10,000
people own 78%. The market could be easily manipulated by a relatively few
number of people.

On the day the Mt Gox news box, the number of buy/sell transactions increased
by ~300% from the day prior, but the currency was mostly stable. To defend the
price level on that day, about $75 million was required. So it's a big bet.
But also minuscule compared to the amount of capital that traders on Wall
Street play typically work with.

I wonder who is buying it? I wonder if increasing the concentration of wealth
into the hands of the few will eventually have adverse consequences for the
value of Bitcoin?

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axefrog
It would be so great if there were a remotely-operated "punch" button aimed at
reporters writing blatantly incorrect information about topics they can't be
bothered to research or understand properly. I, for one, would be dishing out
a fair amount of black eyes, particularly in the Bitcoin space. That is all.

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gremlinsinc
I hope it does collapse, and when it's $50 I'm going to buy a whole bunch--
because it's a limited comodity, and this might slow down desire to grow
bitcoin mining farms--and w/ less supply, demand goes up, and w/ more demand,
price will inevitably rise again - especially w/ so many businesses now using
it. -- This is obviously a rehash of garbage content from other fear-mongering
reporters who obviously don't know shit about Bitcoin and currency in general
--other than the article/articles that they are rephrasing in their own words
to look sophisticated.

Even at $50 a coin--it would still NOT be considered a collapse--as long as
anyone holds it or trades it, or any business accepts it--which thousands have
based their WHOLE business on bitcoin, so yeah--not going anywhere...

Values will drop, but that's happed all the time, it's a very volatile
currency--but that's also why there's so much profit potential--wait for $100,
but up 10 bitcoins @ 1000, then watch it shoot to $2000/coin and rake in the
profits...

Banks have failed before but that DOES not mean they took the USD, or GBP w/
it! Cause people STILL use it!

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lnlyplnt
This is a joke. If anything this incident demonstrates bitcoin's resiliency.
The drop in value has _not_ been catastrophic, and other exchanges seem to
have done a find job of picking up the slack. I think security is going to be
a persistent issue for bitcoin, but once bitcoin services become more
sophisticated will fade as an issue over time.

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austinstorm
I love the quote "Having Mt. Gox shut down is to bitcoin what having the New
York Stock Exchange shut down is to our equity market," said James Angel, a
professor of finance at Georgetown University.

If the NYSE was a lemonade stand.

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grageth
Food for thought for all those that praise Bitcoin's resilience. In the
regulated stock exchanges around the world there are laws and steep penalties
around doing things shady. In the Bitcoin world there are none. The fact that
everything is anonymous only adds to the issue. The value of bitcoin is
determined by what people are willing to purchase it for. I am no financial
expert (not even close), but as a programmer I think to myself, "If I was a
bitcoin exchange and wanted bitcoin to recover it's value, I would just write
some code that made increasingly higher value trades between an anonymous
wallet pool so that all the trades seem legitimate." Noone would know if these
trades are real people or in fact simulated between exchanges. Considering how
quickly oil companies were to do price fixing until it was made illegal, it
doesn't take too much imagination to think that every exchange out there are
working together in some way to control the price of bitcoins.

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salibhai
This is a nice response [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2014/02/15...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2014/02/15/bitcoins-largest-exchange-is-dying-heres-why-thats-not-a-
problem-for-bitcoin/)

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Klaughton32
bitcoin won't receive government backing any time soon, if ever. Cyber
security risk is at an all time high and on the government's NSA agenda.

The next war won't be fought on the ground, it'll hacked out in the deep web.
Until regulation /security concerns are shored up bitcoin isn't a viable long
term currency option.

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salibhai
What a load of FUD.

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LoganCale
Haha, no.

